An Investigation of the Association between Firstborn - Report Example

An investigation of the association between firstborn, middleborn and lastborn siblings with certain personality characteristics Sulloway’s theory that the competition between siblings for parental investment leads them to cultivate family niches associated with their birth order is both discussed and tested in this paper. Examples are given of four secondary researches that have either supported or failed to support his theory which are presented in chronological order. These studies were conducted by Paulhus et al. (1999), Michalski & Shackelford (2002), Saroglou & Fiasse (2003), and Healey & Ellis (2007). The first found strong support for Sulloway’s theory, the second found only weak support, the third contributed new research by distinguishing between middleborns and lastborns and also investigated religious associations, and the last also found support for Sulloway’s theory. Notably, the first and last used the within-family methodology. In yet another contribution to the field, the researcher then also tests whether or not there are associations between birth order and personality albeit by dividing the laterborns into middleborns and lastborns. The siblings are questioned in order to gather their personality characteristics, and the sample comprises of students from families in which there are at least three siblings. The hypotheses to be tested are threefold, that firstborns are the most conscientious of the siblings, middleborns are the most rebellious and lastborns are the most agreeable. Introduction Although siblings share the same parents and usually the same or similar environment and upbringing, they often tend to exhibit very different personalities, and some of the traits seem to be more pervasive depending on the birth order. Several studies have therefore investigated the associations between personality and birth order. Frank Sulloway, a Darwinian protagonist, suggested in his book ‘Born to rebel’, that the competition between siblings for parental investment led them to cultivate family niches associated with their birth order (Healey & Ellis, 2007). That is, in an attempt to gain favour with parents, firstborns identify more closely with parental standards whereas the interests of latterborns become more diversified owing to their position, which leads them to be more open to other experiences. His evidence rested on systematic documentation of historical figures and a meta-analysis of several studies on personality and birth order (Paulhus et al., 1999). Paulhus et al’s (1999) research not only found support for Sulloway’s niche model of personality development, but also for another Zajonc’s confluence model of intellectual achievement. They conducted four studies involving 1,022 families comprising of both students and adults while controlling for various variables. The first study involved 164 university students, the second involved 395 students, the third involved 203 students, and the fourth involved a sample of 309 adults over the age of 40. A variety of personality and achievement dimensions were compared including conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness, and intellectual achievement. It was found that firstborns indeed achieved more and were most conscientious whereas laterborns were most rebellious, liberal and agreeable. By their own admission, the researchers attributed the successful confirmation to the within-family methodology, as also used in the later Healey & Ellis’ (2007) study described below. They state that this methodology provides for built-in control over several differences between families such as class, size and genetics. Furthermore, the strongest support was for conscientiousness and agreeableness, plus liberalism and rebellion. The support for Zjornc’s model was in showing that firstborn’s are more intellectually achieving than laterborns. The above study proved to strongly consolidate Sulloway’s model. However, there have also been other studies that have found no support for the same. For example, Michalski & Shackelford (2002) attempted to replicate Sulloway’s study more closely to test its hypothesis. That is, the firstborn status is positively correlated with surgency and conscientiousness and negatively correlated with agreeableness, emotional stability, and openness. They similarly controlled for sex, age, sibship size, and socioeconomic status. The survey involved 178 male and 260 female undergraduate students who provided self-reporting data. Contrary to Sulloway’s findings, a positive relationship was found between firstborn status and openness, and no relationship was evident between firstborn status and surgency, conscientiousness and emotional stability. The only corroboration was the negative correlation between firstborn status and agreeableness. The researchers concluded that there was very little support for Sulloway’s hypothesis relating birth order and personality, and their study thus added to a number of other similar failed replications. Saroglou & Fiasse (2003) then introduced another dimension into this research area of the association between birth order and personality. They distinguished between two kinds of laterborns, namely middleborns and lastborns, and in addition, they also investigated the effects of birth order on religion. The study thus involved three-sibling families and was also confined to adults. In this study, 122 young adults from Belgium completed a NEO-PI-R questionnaire on religion and school performance, and mothers assessed their personalities. The most rebellious siblings were found to be middleborns, who were also less conscientious, performed lower at school, were more impulsive and open to fantasy. Lastborns were found to be typically agreeable and warm. The school performances of the firstborns were the highest. The results of both self- and mother evaluations were similar. Besides differences, some similarities were found between firstborns and lastborns, especially in regard to conscientiousness, religion and educational achievement. They surmise that both groups attempt to be in conformity-continuity with the family in terms of its ideas, values and traditions. As for attitudes toward religion, this is believed to depend on certain family-related factors such as religious socialisation. However, religion and spirituality were only moderately correlated. The t-test revealed that middleborns were the least religious whereas the other two were exhibited no differences. More recently, Healey & Ellis (2007) investigated differences between the first and second born siblings with respect to some important dimensions of personality. They used a within-family methodology to test two predictions based on Sulloway’s ideas, as did Paulhus et al’s (1999) before them. The selection criteria used resulted in obtaining 161 participants altogether whose average ages were 25.6 for firstborns and 23.0 for secondborns. Firstly, they tested whether firstborns achieve more and are more conscientious than secondborns, and secondly, whether secondborns are more rebellious and receptive to new experiences. In addition, they examined the effects of birth-order size in sister-sister compared to brother-brother pairs. Alpha reliability coefficients and correlations were computed for each item totals. Their findings again support Sulloway’s family-niche model while rejecting an alternative theory. The methodology enabled them to test Sulloway’s model closely because it dealt with differences between the two birth orders raised within the same households. Moreover, the birth-order differences were found to be more predominant between sisters than brothers. Method Participants This study will follow the example set in the Saroglou & Fiasse (2003) study by distinguishing between three tiers of birth orders, namely firstborns, middleborns and lastborns. Thus, it will necessarily involve families with at least three siblings. The participants will comprise of students and the researcher will attempt to obtain a number of the order of a few hundred. A large sample will allow the results to be more generalisable. The limits to achieving this however are accessibility to students and time constraints as only students will be included. These students will be solicited from the researcher’s university and will be asked to sign a consent form to request their permission to participate in the survey. Procedure A self-reported questionnaire and within-family methodology will be used. The questionnaire is therefore the research instrument. It will contain questions to identify the birth order and gender and the larger portion of questions will relate to identifying various personality characteristics. These characteristics will also be taken from the Saroglou & Fiasse (2003) study categorised by neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness. Correlation analysis will then be used to analyse the results to see if there are positive or negative associations between a certain birth order and types of personalities. The two variables are therefore birth order and personality. Other variables such as age and sex will be controlled. The following hypotheses will be tested to either confirm or reject some of Sulloway’s theory, despite its applicability to a 2 as opposed to the 3-tier division of birth order: 1. Firstborns are the most conscientious of the siblings. 2. Lastborns are the most agreeable of the siblings. In addition, a third hypothesis will be tested, that (3) middleborns are the most rebellious of the siblings. References Healey, Matthew D. & Ellis, Bruce J. (2007). Birth order, conscientiousness, and openness to experience – Tests of the family-niche model of personality using a within-family methodology. Evolution and Human Behavior, 28: 55-59. Michalski, Richard L. & Shackelford, Todd K. (2002). An attempted replication of the relationships between birth order and personality. Journal of Research in Personality, 36: 182-188. Paulhus, Delroy L.; Trapnell, Paul D. & Chen, David. (1999). Birth order effects on personality and achievement within families. Psychological Science, 10(6): 482-488. Saroglou, Vassilis & Fiasse, Laure. (2003). Birth order, personality, and religion: a study among young adults from a three-sibling family. Personality and Individual Differences, 35: 19-29. Duplication of outline for the rough draft Introduction Introduce area of research, Sulloway’s theory and its basis Paulhus et al’s (1999) study – supports theory; uses within-family methodology as it provides for ‘built-in control’; Michalski & Shackelford’s (2002) study – rejects theory; contrary findings Saroglou & Fiasse’s (2003) study – divides the laterborns into middleborns and lastborns; study involved 3-sibling families; also investigated effect on religion; similarities between firsborns and lastborns Healy & Ellis’ (2007) study – supports theory; also uses within-family methodology; tested two predictions based on Sulloway’s ideas; difference between sister-sister and brother-brother siblings Method Distinguish firstborns, middleborns and lastborns Three or more sibling families Students, at least a few hundred (large sample desired) Consent form required for students Self-reporting questionnaire Within-family methodology Personality characteristics from Saroglou & Fiasse (2003) study Correlation analysis – to compare birth order and personality Control for age and sex Hypothesis for each of the above birth orders related to conscientiousness, agreeableness and rebelliousness respectively Read More