Birth Order and Personality

Does birth order really affect personality? Are second children more likely to have issues than the youngest? Are only children really spoiled brats or are they just independent? Learn the answers to all of these questions here.

Birth order and personality was first suggested by Alfred Adler, who claimed that birth order leaves a lasting impression on one’s style of life, the way she deals with friendship, love, and work. However, there may be outside influences that also affect birth order and personality, including the spacing of years between the siblings, the total number of children, and the parent’s situation over time. Personal characteristics, temperament, and gender also influence the effect of birth order and personality.

Here is a brief description of some of the characteristics that may be common among children or adults of each birth order:

First born children are usually natural leaders.  As children, they were raised to help care for and watch the younger children, so they’re usually very responsible. They are driven and usually like to manage others.   Firstborns love to be in control and often feel uncomfortable when they are not the master of a situation.  However, they do have a great ability to organize others and achieve any goal they put their mind to. 

Second born children are usually the “people” people.  They’re the outgoing ones, the compromisers and the flexible ones.  In many ways, second borns are just the opposite of first borns.   They see the competition with the first born and decide to react directly contrary to the first born.  They long to belong to a group, whether it be a work, school, or play.  Second borns desire friendship and can often be the glue that holds a relationship together.   Second or middle born children may often suffer from “second child syndrome