In a siblings, the birth order could play a role on personality. A new study evaluated which was the most honest between the elder, the child in the community and the youngest.
In a siblings, the place of the child can play on his education and affect his personality. There are a lot of stereotypes, such as the first authoritarian born but which must show the example, the last rebel but darling of the family, or the child of the forgotten environment, struggling to impose themselves. These associations are most often of received ideas and certain studies even tend to contradict them.
A news studypublished in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Scienceshowever, showed that there were differences between members of a siblings according to their birth order. It is one of the greatest ever led on the subject: it looked at a sample of 710,997 people, whose birth order was known and 749,200 others, including the birth order and the number Brothers and sisters were reported declaring.
This team of Canadian psychologists used a specific methodology, a personality measure called hexaco. It is based on six big sides of the personality: honesty, emotivity, extraversion, kindness, professional conscience and openness to experience. The participants all passed a personality test to find out how they were on these different criteria.
The researchers then noted that on the criteria of honesty and kindness, a place in the siblings was particularly detached. The scores were higher for children in the middle, who placed themselves above the youngest, who themselves surpassed older or unique children. According to this simple statistical trend, children in the community therefore have a tendency to be sincere, just and altruistic. The specialists added that the more a person has brothers and sisters, the more he obtained a good score on these traits. A person from a siblings of six to 60% of chance of being more cooperative than a only child.
The size of the family therefore also plays a role. “It is logical to think that when you have more brothers and sisters, we must cooperate more often rather than acting according to selfish preferences,” explain the authors of the study. Growing up in a large family would therefore promote a more focused personality towards others and to cooperation. According to the explanations put forward, there is the idea that children in the middle are used to playing the mediator in their family. If this place is not always easy, it seems however to allow the child to develop important qualities, and particularly in large families.
Obviously, this study does not establish an absolute rule. “We cannot say a lot about the personality of an individual given from his birth rank or the size of his family, even if there are obvious differences when we do the average on many people “, Nuancé Kibeom Lee, one of the authors of the study.