Eldest child not necessarily the most intelligent: Study

Researchers could find no link between birth order and any personality traits

Certain personality traits are often attributed to oldest, middle and youngest children. But a new study found that birth order itself had no effect on character, though it may slightly affect intelligence.

PHOTO: GIPHY

Researchers analyzed three large ongoing collections of data including more than 20,000 people: a British study that follows the lives of people who were born in one particular week in 1958, a German study of private households started in 1984 and a continuing study of Americans born between 1980 and 1984.

They searched for differences in extroversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, self-reported intellect, I.Q., imagination and openness to experience.

They analyzed families with sisters and brothers, large and small age gaps and different numbers of siblings. They even looked to see if being a middle child correlated with any particular trait. But no matter how they spliced the data, they could find no association of birth order with any personality characteristic.

The three large ongoing studies about this are certainly thorough. The British study follows people born in 1958, the German one started in 1984 and assessment of Americans born between 1980 and 1984 is still ongoing.

PHOTO: COLLEGETIMES

The study, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, did find evidence that older children have a slight advantage in I.Q. scores, but the difference was apparent only in a large sample, with little significance for any individual.

The lead author, Julia M. Rohrer, a graduate student at the University of Leipzig, said that birth order can have an effect — if your older brother bullied you, for example.

“But these effects are highly idiosyncratic,” she said. “There is no such thing as a typical older, middle or younger sibling. It’s important to stop believing that you are the way you are because of birth order.”

This article originally appeared on The New York Times, a partner of The Express Tribune.