The Unexplained Differences In Sibing Personalities: Is Birth Order The Answer?
...get a bit murkier when it comes to an individual's behavior, intelligence, and personality. Debate has always surrounded the question of how much influence birth order has in defining our individual personalities. Ultimately, the argument of nature vs. nurture has never really been won. Therefore, the question remains to be answered. How can children raised in the same home, under the exact same circumstances, often turn out dramatically different?
It is my belief that much more than simply birth order, that personalities are formed by a combination of environmental effects, bearing in mind that the dynamics within a home strongly contribute to these effects. It is not simply the birth order itself that determines who we will be as individuals, but rather it is the result of the behavior that parents exhibit towards each child. As well, as the roles the children assume amongst themselves and how they perceive their parents' attention are factors.
Alfred Adler was the first psychologist to theorize about the effects of birth order on personality development. Adler believed that humans have a strong need to be accepted and valued, and that the family is the first social group in which we strive for this sense of belonging. He viewed parents' responses to their children as being affected by the order of each child's birth into the family. Consequently, he used birth order "as a basis for predicting characteristic behavior of individuals" who fell into the categories of "eldest, middle, youngest, or only child" (Greenberg, Guerino, Lashen, Mayer, and Piskowski, 1963).
Adler's model of typical traits exhibited by birth positions is widely accepted as an example of tendencies and general characteristics that may often apply. In his model, firstborns are characterized as being perfectionists, reliable, well organized, critical, scholarly, achievers and...
View Full Essay
