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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom Never told You?

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Speaker 1: From housetop works dot Com. Hey there, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Kristen, I'm Molly. Molly. I gotta say,

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Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons why you and I

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Speaker 1: have a get along so well, I guess some good,

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Speaker 1: good chemistry. If I may say that, you may, I

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Speaker 1: think it's because you know, you're an oldest sibling and

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Speaker 1: I'm the youngest sibling, and it's I think, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's just a good yin and yang made to be

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Speaker 1: because I'm so bossy and authoritative as first sibling stereotypes

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Speaker 1: would have it. So I tell you, like, yes, Kristen,

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Speaker 1: this is what we're talking about. Yeah, you you reign

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Speaker 1: in my natural tendencies to rebel as the youngest child,

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Speaker 1: and and I teach you to have fun once in

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Speaker 1: a while, you really do. Yeah, I'm as you, like,

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Speaker 1: just have more fun. Yeah, come on, mollways shake you

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Speaker 1: a little bit, and I'm like, no, Kristen, it's time

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Speaker 1: to work, And like, yeah, I'm so driven, that's true.

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Speaker 1: And I'm thinking about all this, Molly, because today we're

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Speaker 1: talking about birth order and personality. I ran across this

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Speaker 1: recent article and Scientific American asking the question does birth

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Speaker 1: order affect your personality? And I was surprised to find

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Speaker 1: how much research has gone into answering this question. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I really enjoyed um researching this because we spend

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Speaker 1: a lot of time. I think I think parents do

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Speaker 1: about how you can just screw your kid up if

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Speaker 1: you breastfeed or don't breastfeed, or daycare don't take care.

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Speaker 1: But I think what's cool is it's possible that you

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Speaker 1: could screw them up just by the order that you

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Speaker 1: birth your kids. Yeah. But luckily I'm a firstborn, so

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Speaker 1: I like to think that I got a pretty good

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Speaker 1: shake out things. But not according to Alfred Adler. And

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Speaker 1: I think we got to talk about Adler because he

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Speaker 1: was really one of the first major proponents of this

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Speaker 1: birth order theory. He was a contemporary of Sigmund Freud,

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Speaker 1: and he thought that actually middle children had the easiest,

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Speaker 1: which is a complete opposite of the stereotype today. Right now,

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Speaker 1: it's it's worth noting, though, that Alfred Adler was a

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Speaker 1: middle born child, so I think that that might have

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Speaker 1: had something to do with why he uh gave middle

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Speaker 1: born children a pass um. But I think that before

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Speaker 1: you you have, before you understand how Adler ranks birth

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Speaker 1: order and it's and it's characteristics, you have to know

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Speaker 1: that all of his theories of personality are based on

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Speaker 1: the idea that we all just feel inferior all the time. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we're basically come out of the womb with a total

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Speaker 1: inferiority complex, right, And so for a firstborn child, you get,

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Speaker 1: you know, a few years of attention, you're at the

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Speaker 1: center of your parents eyes and the world, and then

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden, a long come sibling number two.

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Speaker 1: And that's when you know, for the rest of your life,

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Speaker 1: poor firstborn child is going to have to recover from

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Speaker 1: that inferiority of knowing that someone else has come to you,

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Speaker 1: surved them. And I mean, I remember that's how I

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Speaker 1: felt when my second my first brother came along. The

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Speaker 1: second sibling. Were you a little little angry? I mean,

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Speaker 1: I don't remember being angry, But now that I've read Adler,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to pretend that I am and use it

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Speaker 1: against my parents at some opportune moment about how they

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Speaker 1: really just screwed me up by having that second child. Well,

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Speaker 1: at least you're not the youngest like me, because according

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Speaker 1: to Adler, um, I've always been very aware of the

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Speaker 1: little amount of power that I hold in my family.

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Speaker 1: And uh so I always have personality problems that I'm

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Speaker 1: grappling with because of that, and I feel really alone

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Speaker 1: in the world and feel like I'm always going to

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Speaker 1: be inferior to other people. Yeah, I think you feel

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Speaker 1: in very because you have so many people taking care

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Speaker 1: of you that you never learned how to do things

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Speaker 1: on your own. That's right. And I guess that's why

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Speaker 1: Christmas always asked me to go to the bathroom with her,

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Speaker 1: like she just can't walk there by herself. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's it's a long walk. I mean, you think it's

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Speaker 1: just because girls always go the bathroom together, because because

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Speaker 1: I'm the youngest of five. Um. But again, like we said, Adler,

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Speaker 1: middle born children just do great because they aren't as

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Speaker 1: pampered as the firstborn, so they don't lose, um, that

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Speaker 1: sense of pampering. They can't get that sense of inferiority

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Speaker 1: from that. Um if they still have power over someone

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Speaker 1: people like um. So Adler is the one person who

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Speaker 1: gives a middle born child a good fair shake. But

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Speaker 1: everyone else, um, and all these studies that have been

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Speaker 1: done since then says poor middle children. They are the

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Speaker 1: lost souls. As one article put it, entirely neglected. They

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Speaker 1: just don't know whether to strive to match their older

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Speaker 1: sibling or to rebel like their younger sibling. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's they get the worst deal. They have a gene Brady's. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: When Chris and I were discussing doing this podcast, the

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Speaker 1: one thing we could agree on was that no one

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Speaker 1: wants to be jam Those Cindy kind of sucked me

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Speaker 1: a little bit. I'm okay with being a marsha. Uh

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Speaker 1: never mind, But enough about the Brady bunch, Kristen, Let's

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Speaker 1: just go through all the weird stereotypes. You've alluded to

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Speaker 1: a few of them, but let's go through all the

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Speaker 1: weird things that studies have found, um that different birth

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Speaker 1: order children achieve or don't achieve. One thing I was

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Speaker 1: really surprised of from a Journal of Psychology article. I

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Speaker 1: was going through all the literature, reviewing all the different

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Speaker 1: things that have been found. One thing I was surprised

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Speaker 1: to find is that a firstborn I'm likely to recall

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Speaker 1: fewer dreams. It's too bad because I remember lots of

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Speaker 1: my dreams. Molly. Well, studies haven't shown that lastborn children

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Speaker 1: do that. Though you do score high on exhibition I

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Speaker 1: am quite quite the exhibitionist, not really. Um. Unfortunately, I

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Speaker 1: don't know how I rank with my peers, because studies

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Speaker 1: have alternately found that firstborn are more popular with their

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Speaker 1: peers and less popular with their peers. Yeah. A lot

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Speaker 1: of these kind of do end up with conflicting personality traits,

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Speaker 1: where like I think for younger children were very independent,

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Speaker 1: but we're also dependent at the same same time. Um,

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Speaker 1: I apparently experienced a lot of psych psychiatric disorders and anxieties,

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Speaker 1: but had told you that, Molly. Yeah, I'm sure my

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Speaker 1: mother would have something to say about that too. But

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Speaker 1: luckily I have higher i Q scores and will achieve

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Speaker 1: higher professional status than you. This was one study on

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Speaker 1: birth order, personality and religion that found that middle children

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Speaker 1: are the most likely to be non religious. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: because what is it? They just don't have any values, right,

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Speaker 1: because they're so alone in the wilderness, not knowing where

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Speaker 1: they stand. Um. I liked one article that pointed out

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Speaker 1: that people like Thomas Jefferson, Karl Marks, and Fidel Castro

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Speaker 1: were all younger brothers, and that it was that rebellious

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Speaker 1: streak that all these last porn children have that led

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Speaker 1: them to overthrow countries and think that they could just

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Speaker 1: rebel in that way. And the story on contrasted President

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Speaker 1: Carter and President Clinton with their younger brothers who were

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Speaker 1: kind of wildcats. I think Carter the youngest. Carter had

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Speaker 1: a beer making business and Roger Clinton was Yeah, so um.

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Speaker 1: There are tons of famous examples that both proved stereotype

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Speaker 1: and dispute stereotypes. Usually you look for the ones that

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Speaker 1: match up with what you what you think you should be,

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Speaker 1: things that show that birth order is just great for

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Speaker 1: you and sucks for everyone else. But generally all these

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Speaker 1: studies are pretty discredited. Yeah, studying birth order is pretty

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Speaker 1: difficult because you have so many different factors that are

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Speaker 1: going to affect just family dynamics in general, such as

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Speaker 1: in my case family size. Right, I'm the youngest of five,

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Speaker 1: the youngest of two different scenario, right, And that was

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Speaker 1: something that was pointed in this Scientific American Mind article

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Speaker 1: you're talking about. Earlier, there was the statistic that one

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Speaker 1: of the first twenty three astronauts for firstborns. So you're like, oh,

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Speaker 1: the firstborns get that extra boost from their parents early

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Speaker 1: on a life that gives them that extra boost to

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Speaker 1: go into space. But the fact is, if you are

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Speaker 1: in a family of two, you put a fifty chance

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Speaker 1: of being a firstborn, whereas poor Christin Conger only had

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Speaker 1: a twenty percent chance. That was old Christen Conger rebelling

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Speaker 1: by using our new sound effects toy, just acting out

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Speaker 1: just like a just like a good lastborn childhood. So

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Speaker 1: in addition to family size, we also have things like

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Speaker 1: socioeconomic status. Obviously, the resources that you can give to

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Speaker 1: your children are going to be partially determined by wealth

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Speaker 1: and parents education levels and how old they were when

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Speaker 1: you first when they first started having children. Um and

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Speaker 1: now especially today we've got plendid families. Are there step siblings?

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Speaker 1: Where do they fit in on birth order? If you

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Speaker 1: adopt a sibling, do they come in and fit in

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Speaker 1: in terms of socially, how they came into the family,

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Speaker 1: in terms of age or biologically if they're already older

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Speaker 1: than the firstborn, does everyone shift roles and also gender roles.

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Speaker 1: I mean a lot of these studies don't differentiate between

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Speaker 1: boys and girls, or even how maybe parents few boys

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Speaker 1: and girls and what kind of roles they think a

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Speaker 1: boy or a girl should play Like. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: can't imagine if I had four older sisters, I would

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Speaker 1: probably be a bit different than the person I am

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Speaker 1: now who has two sisters and two brothers. Right, And

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Speaker 1: I don't have any sisters, right, So what if I

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Speaker 1: had had a sister and growing up fighting with her?

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Speaker 1: What I have brought that sort of dynamic to like

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Speaker 1: this relationship Christian exactly? Questions will never know the answer,

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Speaker 1: will never know the answer to. But I stop scientists

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Speaker 1: from trying. Yeah, and and the Scientific American article points

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Speaker 1: out that since a lot of these studies over the

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Speaker 1: years really haven't controlled for all these different factors, it

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Speaker 1: has been pretty hard to conclusively say yes or no

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Speaker 1: to this birth order conundrum. Yes, I think one article

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Speaker 1: I read compared it to astrology that sometimes when you

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Speaker 1: see a person that fits, um, you know, a stereotype,

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Speaker 1: you know, being a Gemini, you'll say, oh, that's so Gemini.

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Speaker 1: And when you see a firstborn that's some stereotype at

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Speaker 1: firstborn behavior, like that's so firstborn. So everything has been

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Speaker 1: taken with a grain of salt. But I would say

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Speaker 1: that in the past few decades we are starting to

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Speaker 1: see maybe a turn in that people are trying to

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Speaker 1: take this a little bit more seriously, trying to really

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Speaker 1: come to some conclusive UM data without having these extraneous

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Speaker 1: factors affected. And one guy I think we need to

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Speaker 1: turn to at this point is man named Frank Stilaway,

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Speaker 1: who wrote the book Born to Rebel in the mid

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Speaker 1: nineties UM and he took a novel approach to this

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Speaker 1: birth order question by applying the evolutionary psychology lens, a

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Speaker 1: controversial lens, but an interesting lens, no less um. And

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Speaker 1: he's saying that parents have limited resources to divide among

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Speaker 1: their children, and that your personality is probably more affected

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Speaker 1: by how many how much of these resources you get. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and he's saying that younger children like me tend to

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Speaker 1: rebel because we don't get all of the resources that um,

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Speaker 1: the older siblings did when our parents didn't have to

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Speaker 1: divide their time among multiple children. So that's how you're

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Speaker 1: trying to get attention, Like everyone has to feel a

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Speaker 1: niche because if you're just like your brother or sister,

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Speaker 1: then you might get were looked. When it comes time

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Speaker 1: to divide up the resources, would you pluve things just

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Speaker 1: like time spent together, monetary things like you know, I

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Speaker 1: was reading that middle children are less likely to be

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Speaker 1: sent to private schools than their older siblings, so things

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Speaker 1: like that, like how can you get your parents attention

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Speaker 1: to get some form of these resources that will set

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Speaker 1: you up better later in life? Yeah, And he also

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Speaker 1: says that second born children tend to be exposed to

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Speaker 1: less language than the older child, which again makes sense.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's all about time and resources. And he

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Speaker 1: says the best environment is really if you just have

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Speaker 1: two parents who are constantly just talking to you, and

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Speaker 1: all their attention is focused just on you, right, Whereas

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Speaker 1: when you're the second born, you might be spending time

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Speaker 1: with your your baby sibling who can't really talk. But

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Speaker 1: I would argue, you know, I had I had four

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Speaker 1: four kids chattering away around me, but you're a last one. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: You had more people who knew how to talk, whereas

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Speaker 1: I had just my parents, and my poor middle brother

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Speaker 1: was stuck with like me, he could probably kind of

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Speaker 1: talk when he came around, and parents who had to

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Speaker 1: divide their attention. But Molly. According to a Norwegian study,

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Speaker 1: you still got the better end of the deal in

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Speaker 1: terms of i Q. I did well. Now Norway. This

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Speaker 1: is the study that comes up all the time and

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Speaker 1: all these arc was read about birth order. This two

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Speaker 1: thousand to stay that was done in Norway about i

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Speaker 1: Q and birth order. And yes, according to this I

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Speaker 1: would have got the better end of the deal because

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Speaker 1: an oldest born child had an i Q those three

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Speaker 1: points higher than um the next sibling, and you as

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Speaker 1: the last sibling, would have really suffered because it said

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Speaker 1: for the greater number of siblings you have, the lesser

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Speaker 1: you're i Q. It was sort of proportional way to go, Kristen. However,

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Speaker 1: there is a problem with this study. I mean, it's

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Speaker 1: a large study, two or fifty thousand Norwegian soldiers that

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Speaker 1: they that they looked at for this data. And that's

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Speaker 1: why it gets so much credibility is it was such

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Speaker 1: a large, very large, very comprehensive but only men, only men.

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Speaker 1: So it's not the greatest maybe study to cite on

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Speaker 1: mom stuff. And it was in Norway. I mean, they

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Speaker 1: think they can extrapolate this data to the United States,

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Speaker 1: but who knows. It could be cultural difference as these

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Speaker 1: were all men who had joined the military, exactly, because

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Speaker 1: you have to take into account cultural factors. You know,

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Speaker 1: perhaps in Norway, sons are more prized and valued than daughters,

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Speaker 1: whereas in the US, maybe there's more of a tendency

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Speaker 1: to pour your resources into the girls in the family.

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Speaker 1: I mean, they're all these factors that can go into

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Speaker 1: how kids are treated on an individual basis, right. I mean,

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Speaker 1: for every study so far, there's been an asterisk that

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Speaker 1: says exclusions may apply. But there is one study that

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Speaker 1: kind of attempted to eliminate all those asterisks that started

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Speaker 1: to stay in the plural form uh. And this was

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Speaker 1: a study that was published last year in the journal

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Speaker 1: and by last I mean two thousand nine UH in

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Speaker 1: the Journal of Genetic Psychology that tried to control for

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Speaker 1: all these different factors that we've been talking about and

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Speaker 1: really assess whether or not birth order has an impact

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Speaker 1: on the big five personality traits, which are molly, openness, conscientiousness, extraversion,

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Speaker 1: agreeable nous, neuroticism. And they looked at things like how

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Speaker 1: spread out the family was, like age distribution, maternal relationships,

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Speaker 1: blended families, blended families, social versus biological order. And they

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Speaker 1: were starting with the assumption that Sullaway's work of evolutionary

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Speaker 1: um psychology affecting birth order was valid. So what they

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Speaker 1: want to do is say, Okay, if this holds true,

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Speaker 1: then we should be able to code for all of

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Speaker 1: these differences. And the coding section of this paper it

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Speaker 1: takes quite a while to read, but you are left

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Speaker 1: thinking with yes, they must have accounted for every single

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Speaker 1: difference that affects all these other studies. Um, So they

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Speaker 1: code for all the differences and then match birth order

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Speaker 1: to these big five personality traits. Now, before you know

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Speaker 1: you come up with the results. You might think that

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Speaker 1: a first born be more conscientious, for example, a middle

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Speaker 1: child would be more agreeable because they just want to

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Speaker 1: get along with everyone, and the last born might be

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Speaker 1: more extroverted because they're there butte. So that that's sort

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Speaker 1: of the general thought of what you might find once

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Speaker 1: you match all these birth orders accounting for all the

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Speaker 1: extra factors. But that's not what they found. They found nothing. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they found quote no evidence of birth order's role and

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Speaker 1: personality or identity formation. So good news, parents, you can't

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Speaker 1: screw up your kids just by the order you have them. However, Molly,

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Speaker 1: this argument still isn't closed and ever be Yeah. Not.

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Speaker 1: According to Joshua Ka Harsham from the Scientific America article

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Speaker 1: that we've referenced a couple of times, because he says,

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Speaker 1: not so fast, he and some colleagues found evidence that

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Speaker 1: birth order influences who you choose as friends or spouses.

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Speaker 1: Basically that middles are drawn to middles, last borns to

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Speaker 1: last borns, etcetera. So he says, if that's the case,

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Speaker 1: then there has to be some kind of personality correlation, right,

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Speaker 1: because we usually marry people that we are very similar

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Speaker 1: to personality wise. So if my personality is in fact

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Speaker 1: affected by being a firstborn, if I marry another first born,

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Speaker 1: then yes, there must be something there, which kind of

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Speaker 1: brings us to where we started Kristen, in terms of

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Speaker 1: who was most compatible with who we think for podcasting purposes,

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Speaker 1: oldest and youngest works pretty well. Yeah, And funny story, Molly,

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Speaker 1: one of my best friends is not only the youngest

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Speaker 1: of five like you like me, she is also the

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Speaker 1: youngest of five and the same family distribution in terms

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Speaker 1: of uh number of brothers and sisters two sisters, two brothers,

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Speaker 1: and very far spacing between the youngest and the oldest.

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Speaker 1: It was uncanny. So you think this guy's were a castimbility,

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Speaker 1: that you had a very good friendship with someone who

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Speaker 1: had the exact same family layout that you did. Thus

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Speaker 1: there's something to this personality. Well, I mean, I'm an

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Speaker 1: example of it, but it could also be the same

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Speaker 1: thing that we we noted earlier, where the one of

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Speaker 1: the authors just said, well, it's just basically like astrology.

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Speaker 1: You know, you find something that correlates to your your

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Speaker 1: son and suddenly you're a gentleman destined to be. Well,

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Speaker 1: let's just for a minute pretend it's not astrology, because

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Speaker 1: we found some pretty interesting stuff worth a good giggle

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Speaker 1: on I Village. Now that's not normally one of our sources.

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Speaker 1: It's not not i would say known for its scholarly

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Speaker 1: um reputation. Yeah, but when if you put in if

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Speaker 1: you start to put in birth order in Google, it's

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Speaker 1: going to automatically fill in birth order love match. And

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Speaker 1: I couldn't resist not clicking on that, and so came

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Speaker 1: to um this really handy page on birth order and

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Speaker 1: uh love matches, which I mean, I'm going to use

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Speaker 1: it now to guide all my future romantic pursuit. Apparently

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Speaker 1: my new pickup line needs to be, hey, young man,

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Speaker 1: have any older sisters, because apparently I will do very

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Speaker 1: well as an older sister with m a male youngest

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Speaker 1: child who has older sisters himself. Now, I will just

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Speaker 1: reasoning for this is that because I'm an eldest child

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Speaker 1: and a sister, I will likely have great maternal urges.

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Speaker 1: And the young man, on the other hand, will have

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Speaker 1: grown up with all these girls taking care of him

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Speaker 1: and doating on him, and he's gonna want the same

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Speaker 1: and a wife, and thus the best match is an

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Speaker 1: oldest sister and the youngest male. Now you can start

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Speaker 1: to see some of the fallacies that are going to

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Speaker 1: come in with this, because I do not have any

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Speaker 1: maternal urges as a result of being the eldest child

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Speaker 1: that I know of, so I don't know how I

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Speaker 1: would do with a young man who's seeking that. But

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Speaker 1: all the same, it's it's an interesting pickup line. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think I'm supposed to be on the lookout for

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Speaker 1: either an oldest oldest sibling Molly or an only child. Um.

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Speaker 1: But the worst family blend evidently is an only child

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Speaker 1: female to an only child male. Because quote, not only

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Speaker 1: will they butt heads, but neither will have much of

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Speaker 1: a clue about the other gender. Interesting, now, Chris, and

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Speaker 1: luckily neither you nor I have to worry about the

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Speaker 1: only child female only child male situation. But I will

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Speaker 1: just say that I cannot marry apparently another firstborn too

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Speaker 1: much friction, and you should not marry another lastborn because um,

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Speaker 1: it's gonna feel too chaotic, too much fun, too out

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Speaker 1: of control. There is such a thing, so you've got

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Speaker 1: to find someone who balances you. And I don't think

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Speaker 1: that's gonna be news to anyone, but it's interesting to

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Speaker 1: see what what they can come up with based on

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Speaker 1: birth order love. Maybe we should start our own dating site,

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Speaker 1: Molly that combines birth order matching, maybe tossing some astrology.

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Speaker 1: Can we call it first He's rule? Yes that she

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Speaker 1: would like it to be called firstborn children rule? So

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Speaker 1: what do you guys think has birth order affected your personality?

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Speaker 1: Are you a Marcia, Jan or Cindy or Bobby or

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Speaker 1: Greg or Peter? I can't about the guys, Molly, of

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Speaker 1: course not. I didn't mean to imply the only girls

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Speaker 1: should write us, but just how how has uh your

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Speaker 1: family dynamic been changed by birth order, And I mean,

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Speaker 1: what so what do we say though for the to

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Speaker 1: answer our question? Is birth order affect your personality? I

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Speaker 1: think the studies conclude maybe, but we don't know. So

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Speaker 1: another another one that science still gets to figure out.

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Speaker 1: But let us know what you think by writing to

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Speaker 1: us at mom stuff at how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: And before we go, let's shall we read one person's

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Speaker 1: email who wrote us at stuff works dot com. Capital

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Speaker 1: I dml I. Well, I've got an email here from Krista,

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Speaker 1: and she wrote us about women in sports, and she

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Speaker 1: told us a little story about some girls in her

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Speaker 1: middle school who actually tried out for the football team

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Speaker 1: and made it on. She said they were the first

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Speaker 1: girls to ever make it onto the football team, and

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Speaker 1: not only that, but to the boys football team. I

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Speaker 1: can't tell you whatever happened with it, because, like I said,

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Speaker 1: I totally wasn't with it in middle school. But I

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Speaker 1: remember having a mad girl crush on them just because

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Speaker 1: they were so courageous for fighting for their rights to

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Speaker 1: be on the boys football team. Goodness knows. I can't

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Speaker 1: remember their names anymore, but I can picture the headline

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Speaker 1: and their picture in the uniforms holding on their football

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Speaker 1: helmets in my head like it was right in front

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Speaker 1: of me. So thanks for sending in the story, Christoff,

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Speaker 1: and as always, if you have any stories to share

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Speaker 1: with us, please send us an email Mom stuff at

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com and during the week you

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Speaker 1: should check out our blog it's called how to Stuff,

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00:21:21,960 --> 00:21:25,440
Speaker 1: where you can learn how to do lots of stuff

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00:21:26,080 --> 00:21:31,600
Speaker 1: and to learn more fascinating facts about the world at large,

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00:21:32,080 --> 00:21:37,800
Speaker 1: you should head over to how stuff works dot com

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Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does

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00:21:40,280 --> 00:21:44,480
Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,

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00:21:44,760 --> 00:21:46,960
Speaker 1: check out our blogs on the house. Stuff works dot

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Speaker 1: thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you