How Birth Order Affects Personality

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Everyone has heard of “middle child syndrome” but the question is, is it a real thing? Can your birth order actually have an effect your personality? The answer to that question is yes. Studies conducted over the years have shown that the order children are born in has an impact on not only their personality but also a child’s intellect and life choices. A Neo-Freudian named Alfred Adler was one of the first theorist to suggest that birth order influences personality. According to Adler’s theory, children of the same family are not born into the same environment not psychological situation because of this, it is not the actual order of the birth, but the psychological situation that is important. He theorized that (birth order or psychological situation) can leave an impression on an individual’s style of life including: friendship, love, work, intellect, and creativity. Adler’s description of the effects of birth order contains the follow features: 1) Children of the same family …show more content…
For example, a child with older siblings has to learn how to get along with them because they are bigger and stronger than he or she is, while the child with younger siblings learns lessons in responsibility, leadership, and patience. The child in the middle is tasked with both jobs. All three of these children will be treated differently by their parents: first-borns are given more responsibility, laterborns more affection. Many people believe that their oldest brother or sister is the family achiever and the youngest in their family is the rebel. Yet, this is not always the case. Studies have shown that firstborns do not, on average, make better grades than laterborns; nor are firstborns more likely to attend college. Laterborns are not more likely to rebel in childhood by underachieving in elementary school, or to rebel in adolescence by dropping out of high

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