Not so sure it's quite fair to call the birth-order effect 'pop-psychology.' A book I would highly recommend is "Pecking Order: Which Siblings Succeed and Why," by Dalton Conley, a social research scientist at the University of Michigan. His superbly written book provides ample statistical evidence that birth order and gender are two of the most powerful factors that influence the time and resources that a family can/is able to give to any one particular child. The less the resources, the more the earlier born benefit and the less resources available to the later-born. Also, gender is crucial for the reason that our culture still tends to view daughters as the care-takers and sons not-so-much. What Dalton finds again and again is that if a family is in crises due to parental illness or financial straits, the daughters are much more likely to be asked to give up their goals and to help with the household tasks while the son is allowed to proceed with his goals and aspirations without interruption.
This book has one very amusing though not surprising segment where he asks the first born and later born why the older child is more of an achiever than the younger children. As per the fundamental attribution error, the first-borns almost always respond, "Well, I am a higher achiever and a harder worker. My younger sibling(s) is lazy and unmotivated." When the later-born are asked, they seem far more aware that their older sibling received more attention/encouragement as well as having higher expectations placed on them. Joan [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________________________ Like so many pop-psych > notions, we can always find interesting ways to fit it to our lives in > hindsight and this convinces us of the importance of the idea. I feel the > idea may have more relevance to a later discussion in my classes about > non-shared environmental influences and the difficulties of researching > same. Birth order is always fun to chat about though as we always can > find stories to relate. Gary > > Ernst, C., & Angst, J. (1983). Birth order: Its influence on personality. > N.Y.: Springer-Verlag. > Rodgers, J. L,, Cleveland,m H.N., van den Oord, E., & Rowe, D. C. (2000). > Resolving the debate over birth order, family size, and intelligence. > American Psychologist, 55, 599-612. > Steelman, L. C. (1985). A tale of two variables: A review of the > intellectual consequences of sibship size and birth order. Review of > Educational Research,55, 353-386. > > Gerald L. (Gary) Peterson, Ph.D. > Professor, Psychology > > --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
