Birth Order

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6) This study took place to examine if the birth order in a family has a long lasting impression on a person’s life course as this is a question that has intrigued scientists and the general public for many years. Data from three large panels the United States, Great Britain and Germany was used to help resolve this question. Two different detailed strategies were used to compare siblings with different birth orders in (i) Within the same family and (ii) between different families. Between families are thought to be a less reliable source as the individuals’ variance in personality is not caused by birth order but by socioeconomic status and genes.
The first examination that took place was the effect birth order has on intelligence. This study
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When the effect of birth order on personality was investigated, the researchers found that the birth order position had no effect on four out of the five personality traits these were; extraversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, or conscientiousness in the two groups studied.in another study carried out by Sulloway (1999) it was found that birth order has no effect on emotional stability either. Because of the different volumes of intellect on the openness scales it lead to incoherent results.
Another test between first-borns and later-borns took places reusing the results of the within- and between-families, the results of this study found that first-borns have slightly higher intelligence and intellect, which is much the same as the previous study. Likewise it was found that birth order had no significant effect on personality.
Following a hypothesis of Healey and Ellis (2007) that choosing siblings with an age gap between 1.5-5 years gives a clearer result of birth-order effects, a further study took place where only siblings ranging between this age gaps were participants. Similar to the other experiments the results showed that only intelligence and openness to experience were