|
 This is less of a blog post and more of a memo to my younger siblings. I was right all along. I am smarter than you.
Oldest siblings everywhere are walking around cocksure and vindicated this week thanks to a study from an international team of scientists that determined oldest children perform better on IQ tests.
Scientists from the U.K., the U.S., and Australia observed the behaviors of roughly 5,000 children (through 14 years old) in addition to parental behaviors. According to the observations, oldest children performed better on verbal, reading, math, and comprehension tests than their younger siblings.
The findings seem to be based on simple logic. Because the oldest child typically starts out as an only child, the parents heap extra attention and focus on that child, often stimulating them with thinking activities that help encourage their cognitive development. This extra time and support are responsible for the successful outcomes of the oldest child. When additional children come along, there is less time to spend on developing these skills in younger children.
This extra attention at earlier ages leads to the phenomenon known as “birth order effect,” where older children tend to be better educated and paid better wages later in life.
It is interesting to note that by the time families expand with additional children, parents tend to be more relaxed and less focused on doing everything “the right way.” Less one-on-one time is spent reading to or participating in activities with younger children.
Also of interest is that emotional support had no bearing on the intelligence outcomes of the study. Each child could receive equal amounts of emotional support from their parents and it didn’t affect test results.
So what does this information mean for younger siblings (of course, beyond having to come to terms with what you have probably long suspected)? According to the study, the only difference for younger siblings is that they might have to work harder in life.
So dear siblings, it bears repeating that the hints of my supremacy over the years were not the stuff of imagination.
Has birth order influenced your professional life? Your personal life?
Image credit: Richard Leeming / CC BY-SA 2.0
| 
2
Re: Brains and Birth Order
Good Answers:
"Almost" Good Answers: