Science Behind Birth Order

    After researching so much about birth order I was curious to see if there was an actual science behind it. According to my research scientists have actually studied why people are the way they are due to birth order. Epidemiologists have done a study on 250,00 siblings and found that the first-born has a three-point IQ advantage which really surprised me. I had no idea that there could be that much difference just because you were born first. Actually researchers discovered that the oldest child gets at least 3,000 more hours with their parents and parents tend to have higher expectations for the first-born. Unlike their siblings whose parents tend to loosen up when the next kids are born. Middle children are stuck in between like I have said before they have better "theory of mind" than their older siblings. Meaning they are more agreeable and play better with their siblings. Not much research has been done from what I've seen which is really disappointing I think there should be more studies done on the middle child.



       
   

                 

    Now the "baby" of the family I found the research most interesting to read and the research process for this topic was harder than the other topics I have researched before. Scientists have found out that some families have the theory of the "survival of the fittest" by Charles Darwin, when new siblings are introduced into the family with younger siblings fighting to be on top. However, researchers from UC Berkley came across the fact that younger siblings are 1.5 times more likely to be riskier than their siblings. Also some people did studies in major league baseball which was very surprising to see and they discovered that later born siblings are more likely to steal 2nd base or have better batting success. Proving their theory that the youngest child are the "daredevils" of the family. I found the science behind birth order very interesting even though finding a reliable article was tougher than usual. I think that birth order is very important and has a huge affect on our lives in every way.

Turgeon, Heather. "Birth Order and Personality: What's the science behind sibling rank?" Babble.

     Disney, N. d. Web. 16 May 2016.