Birth Order As One Of The Main Influence Of The Child's Personality

Personality comes from many different things, but a main influencer is from birth order. Children who are first borns and children who are later-borns contrast in how they act majorly because of when they came into this world. It can determine certain aspects of mental illness, the level of maturity a person will be at and how fast they will reach it, and it can even determine the type and amount of risks someone will take in their life. These traits stem from parental attitude and comfortability as well as the theory of survival of the fittest from Charles Darwin. This research can be applied to real life and create solutions to problems found within classrooms, therapy groups, and society as a whole.

I found the research of this topic to be extremely interesting as I could apply to it my own life. I have always been fascinated by what it causes people to have the particular personality they have. Researching this topic, I became increasingly intrigued in the entirety of how everything worked and why children had different traits solely because of when they were born.

As well, I began to look for similarities in my own life that I was finding in this research. I would compare my brother and myself to the typical firstborn and later-born stereotype I found within my research. It was interesting to see what fit within our dynamic and what did not. Some of the qualities that my brother and I have suddenly became clear as to why it worked out like that. In the end, this topic intrigued me and peaked my interest due to the theories of how the personalities are formed. One decision made by a parent could influence a child’s personality for the rest of their lives.

Birth order was not always a variable considered to be studied. Alfred Adler, an Austrian psychoanalyst who was a follower of Sigmund Freud, is a big part of the reason that opinion has changed. This scientist, like many other Freudian followers believed Freud was neglecting the social aspect of his research (Eisenhower, 2019). His feelings that he wasn’t exploring everything he possibly could be caused him to establish his own school of psychology he called individual psychology (Eishenman, 2019). It was here that he began to form the belief that birth order was in fact worthy of being studied (Eisenhower, 2019). Still, the effect of birth order was often overlooked. Many found it to just be an actuarial variable, like social class, age, and gender, so psychologists did not view it as important enough to study (Eisenman, 2019).

It was in 1959, when Stanley Schacter published The Psychology of Affiliation where he revealed how impactful birth order truly is (Eisenman, 2019). This opened the study of birth order and many researchers began looking into it themselves. In these cases, they often employed the use of surveying subjects about the order they were born in in an attempt to see if any patterns were present (Eisenman, 2019). Due to the difficulty of just looking at younger siblings or older siblings, most research has focused on comparing the siblings to find their independent traits (Eisenman, 2019). Therefore, the majority of the information that is known about this topic has to do with how firstborns and later-borns are different instead of their individual personalities (Eisenman, 2019).

Understanding how that birth order does impact people’s personality can be significant in many ways. From learning how to better treat people with mental illness to creating a better society for women to achieve, it can create opportunities for people they wouldn’t have seen without insight on this topic. It is very important for people to understand this topic in order to achieve optimal results in whatever they are partaking in.

The research found from this topic can develop strategies for people to succeed and create a better world to live in. Birth order also impacts areas of mental health. It can show reasoning behind why a person suffers from a specific disorder and different ways of helping them. This will allow therapists better clarity of what steps to take to find a solution and allow the patients to develop a stronger understanding of why they are affected by a disorder.