First Borns are the Leaders, Babies of the Families the "Jokesters"?

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In this video, the author talks about his theory behind birth order. In sum, he said that the first born children tend to be more reliable, conscientious, list makers, don't like surprises, etc. while the youngest in the family tend to be the jokesters. He then said that the first born tend to seek powerful positions, like President, doctor, engineer, lawyer, etc. I found this very hard to believe. I am the second born and youngest in my family and I would say my sister is more conscientious and a "list maker", but I am more ambitious and have been more of a leader in the community and school than her.

Our textbook says, "Many popular books...claim that firstborns tend toward achievement, middle-borns toward diplomacy and later-borns towards risk taking. Yet virtually all of these claims are exaggerated, because most researchers have failed to uncover strong or consistent associations between birth order and personality."

Please watch the above video and let me know if you generally agree with his statements or not.

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I am actually sitting next to my younger sister right now and felt the urge to share the topic of your post with her, simply to see if I could get a rise out of her! She actually seemed to agree though. I am an extremely organized and conscientious person, were she is more "go with the flow". After we discussed this with each other, I watched the movie you provided above, and found it crazy that even he confirmed this theory to be true. I also completely agree to why he says this is true. My parents have definitely lightened up with her, compared to me. I find my self saying "uh, that's not fair, I didn't get to do that until I was way older" all the time.

I don't agree with the video or the theory. It seems to me that the younger child always has more to prove. I am the youngest in a family of three boys and am the only one to complete college. Both of my brothers have taken many more risks than me growing up and faced the wrath of our parents because of it. I know I am only one example but feel that there are many more out there. I just think this theory does not hold water when it is actually compared with the general population I think researchers are only seeing what they want to see.

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This page contains a single entry by hulls014 published on April 20, 2012 11:24 AM.

Who is smarter? Men or women? was the previous entry in this blog.

Birth Order is the next entry in this blog.

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