Birth Order and Personality

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Cynthia Miller Social Psychology Dr. A. Shields 18 November 2013 Birth Order and Personality Does the order in which you are born into a family have any correlation to your personality? Are we are destined to have characteristics based on birth order trait? Birth order is defined as the rank in which a person is born relative to his/her siblings. Birth order is believed to have a profound effect in the psychological development of a person. Often, we hear people say things like, “middle children are attention-seekers” or “last born children are always stubborn and spoiled”. These statements are often stereotypes and may even be insulting, but we cannot deny that they hold some truth. Birth order theory suggests that birth order can affect the developing personality of a child. Eldest children, youngest children, the middle child and only children fall into statistical groups with similar personality traits. Some experts believe that birth order is an important tool in shaping how you turn out as an adult. It determines how you see the world, how you expect the world to treat you, and how you treat others. Alfred Adler was the first theorist to suggest that birth order does influence a person’s personality. His belief, which is both accepted and rejected by researchers, is that the order or position of a child’s birth in the family influences their personality. However, what is often misunderstood is the fact that Adler did not believe it was simply the order of birth that influenced a child’s character, but rather it was the child’s environment, as well as their natural instinct or interpretation of their birth order which molded personalities. For instance, in the case of twins, one child may intuitively believe themselves to be the stronger of the two, and take on the role as a leader and surrogate parent,
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