Correlation between personality traits and birth order

Maričić, Bosiljka. (2006). Correlation between personality traits and birth order. Diploma Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of Psychology. [mentor Bratko, Denis].

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Abstract

Birth order, except in case of twins, is a variable that necessarily makes children within a family different from each other. Study of correlation between birth order and personality traits is a field of interest that many researchers have been dealing with for a number of years. The goal of this research was to explore whether there is a correlation between personality traits and birth order. According to Sulloway's theory (1996), we have assumed there is a correlation in the sense that the firstborns are more extroverted and conscientious, while laterborns are more agreeable, emotionally more stable and more open to new experience. Results of our research have not confirmed these hypotheses. Results showed that there is no correlation between birth order and Extroversion, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness and Emotional Stability. There is a statistically significant correlation between birth order and Intelect, in the sense that the Intelect of the firstborns is more distinct. We have also tried to establish whether there is a correlation between birth order and self-estimated intelligence. With regard to research that has been carried out so far (Zajonc and Mullaly, 1997; Eckstein, 2000), indicating that there is a correlation between birth order and intelligence and with regard to research showing there is a positive correlation between the IQ and the self-estimated intelligence (Borkenau and Lieber, 1993; Furnham and Rawles, 1995; Furnham, Fong and Martin, 1999), we generated the hypothesis that there is correlation between birth order and self-estimated intelligence in the sense that the firstborn will achieve higher scores in self-estimated intelligence. Findings of this research have not confirmed such expectations. It was shown there is no statistically significant correlation between self-estimated intelligence and birth order. We have also explored correlation between birth order and academic achievement. With regard to the existing findings (Bohmer and collaborates, 1993; Eckstein, 2000; Jefferson and collaborates 1998), we have expected that firstborns would have better grade averages, but results of our research have shown that there is no correlation between these two variables.

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