Exploring the complexities of analyzing birth order and personality traits, emphasizing the significance of age effects in addition to birth order effects. The discussion touches on the big five personality traits and identifies a slight association between being a first-born and scoring higher on a sub-dimension related to intellect.
We all know the cliches about older siblings being responsible, younger ones being creative, and middle children being peacemakers. But is there any evidence our position in the family has an impact on our personality? Madeleine Finlay meets Dr Julia Rohrer, a personality psychologist at the University of Leipzig, to unpick the science behind our intuition about birth order. Help support our independent journalism at
theguardian.com/sciencepod