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Merged birth order, personality

Rrose Selavy

Stranded in Sub-Atomica
Rrose Selavy
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Sep 11, 2004
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Well having just come across this (I know it's the Daily Mail) A psychologist plugs their new book on supposed birth order on personality.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/a...ddle-Or-baby-How-place-family-rules-life.html

The above reads like a load of vague Barnum statements, so I'm sceptical and so is the Wiki article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_order

Tried searching here on the forum and the search is useless for "birth order" , surprised if it hasn't been covered in a thread.
Anyway any thoughts on the issue, other than anecdotes like "yeah that's me I'm a typical Aries/ youngest child " ?

EDIT: Sorry meant to post this in Skepticism , so please go there , unless the mods decide otherwise. I'll ask them to delete this dup.
 
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Well having just come across this (I know it's the Daily Mail) A "pop" psychologist plugs their new book on supposed birth order influence on personality.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1351567/First-born-Piggy-middle-Or-baby-How-place-family-rules-life.html

I'm sceptical, the above reads like a load of vague Barnum statements, and so is the Wiki article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_order

Tried searching here on the forum and the search is useless for "birth order" , surprised if it hasn't been covered in a thread.
Anyway any thoughts on the issue?, other than anecdotes like "yeah that's me I'm a typical Aries/ youngest child " ?
 
There are epigenetic effects which depend on birth order, usually to the detriment of those born later, and certainly the social environment into which younger children are born is different than the social environment into which older children are born. I doubt that any of this translates to statistically valid personality profiles.

Edit: I don't read Skepticism, so I guess that's all I'll have to say.
 
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Wasn't 'birth order' mentioned in one of the homosexuality threads? And wasn't it discredited?
 
I pulled these out of the Scientific American article:

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.
Click to expand...
... the evidence seems to be shifting back in favor of our common intuition that our position in our family somehow affects who we become. The details, however, remain vague.
Click to expand...
... and ...
It’s fine for scientists to say “more study is needed,” but we must find love, gain self-knowledge and parent children now.
Click to expand...
The bottom line?

Actual cause-and-effect of birth order versus personality is not yet - or likely will never be - experimentally confirmed, although there seems to be a greater correlation between wealth, family size and relative success of offspring.
 
Fnord said:
I pulled these out of the Scientific American article:



... and ...

The bottom line?

Actual cause-and-effect of birth order versus personality is not yet - or likely will never be - experimentally confirmed, although there seems to be a greater correlation between wealth, family size and relative success of offspring.
Click to expand...


The more kids, the stupider the average kid.
The higher in the birth order, the smarter.

This maxxes out at the oldest in a 2 child family with an age delta of 2 years 8 months. I rolled well. 2y8m26d
 
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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.
Click to expand...
Me number six.
:(
 
One of my lady friends was well done the birth order in her family... 10th or so, and quite intelligent, personable, capable, and bipolar. :(
 
Well, we have five middle children, and they are all as different as chalk and cheese. And our seventh is showing signs of being the brightest of them all, closely followed by our sixth.

The model doesn't fit us.
 
Beerina said:
The more kids, the stupider the average kid.
The higher in the birth order, the smarter.
Click to expand...

Really? The youngest of our 11 children scored very high in reading comprehension/level when she started grade 4 at her new school. Highest in her class. She was reading at a grade 8 level and quite impressed her teacher.

Pretty smart kid, and we've treated her no differently than any of the other children in the family.

RayG
 
RayG said:
Really? The youngest of our 11 children scored very high in reading comprehension/level when she started grade 4 at her new school. Highest in her class. She was reading at a grade 8 level and quite impressed her teacher.

Pretty smart kid, and we've treated her no differently than any of the other children in the family.

RayG
Click to expand...

Serious? You have 11 kids? I thought I was stupid.;)
 
RayG said:
Yup, all mine, no blended family, no adoptions. Six girls, five boys.

Still have nine of them living with me, so my grocery bill is enormous. :D

RayG
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Four girls, three boys for us, but only three left at home.

I've never had to worry about where my paycheck went.
 
lionking said:
Well, we have five middle children, and they are all as different as chalk and cheese. And our seventh is showing signs of being the brightest of them all, closely followed by our sixth.

The model doesn't fit us.
Click to expand...

Well, how strong is the correlation supposed to be? Not all that strong, I would guess.
 
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