1. Birth Order & Personality
Alfred Adler
Birth Order & Personality

2. Birth order is believed to affect the way a person responds to people, the career you will choose, and the person you marry.

3. Oldest’s tend to:
Have some of the characteristics of only’s since they were only children for a period of time
Be high-achievers who take life seriously
Be competent and conscientious but quite discouraged if they don’t succeed
Strive to please
Be critical of themselves and others
Have ‘to-do’ lists
Be the center of attention
Feel rejected at the birth of a second child
Have love-hate relationship with a younger sibling
Enjoys demonstrating superiority or control over younger siblings
Feel that their parents have higher expectations for them and are stricter with them than with younger siblings
Enter challenging, high-pressure professions like politics, medicine, law or engineering.
52% of U.S. presidents have been oldest children

4. Middle’s tend to:
Choose to do the exact opposite of their older sibling
Have more unpredictable personalities
Feel they never have their parents’ undivided attention
Have the fewest pictures in the family album
Show an extreme loyalty to their peer group with friends being very important
Avoid conflict
Make excellent managers and good mediators because they have learned to negotiate and compromise
Be the most adaptable and tenacious because they are used to life being rather unfair
Be creative, artistic or musical
Be independent or the maverick of the family
Not be as driven as the oldest but not as compulsive either
Get less attention than the oldest or youngest but more training for life

5. Youngest’s tend to:
Be labeled the ‘baby’ of the family regardless of their age
Be absentminded or expect others to do things for them
Feel no one takes them seriously
Be outgoing and charming, carefree and vivacious, a ‘people person’
Be the ‘clown’ prince or princess since they can’t be the ‘crown’ prince or princess
Learn to manipulate the family system, ‘setting up’ older siblings or gaining special privileges
Have feelings of insecurity and inferiority
Be treated with ambivalence, coddled and spoiled one minute, laughed at and criticized the next
Be taught by brothers and sisters rather than mom and dad

6. Youngest cont.
Align themselves with the oldest sibling against the middle
Gravitate toward people-centered professions, making particularly good salespeople and entertainers
Have an ‘I’ll show them’ attitude
Become a ‘speeder’, overtaking older siblings in achievements
In a study of CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies, youngest’s were over-represented compared to their numbers in population

7. Only’s tend to: Be reliable, conscientious and well-organized
Be the focus of attention
Use a divide and conquer strategy to get their way
Be independent and self-reliant
Refuse to cooperate if they don’t get their way
Lack of skills of sharing and negotiating when young
Strive to please
Be quite creative
Be more comfortable relating with adults than their peers
Set high expectations and be demanding of themselves
Have the achievement characteristics of the oldest plus the demand characteristics of the youngest
Be drawn to professions demanding strict mental discipline and attention to detail
Of the first 23 astronauts, 21 were only or oldest children
Some well-known only children include FDR, Leonardo da Vinci, Sammy Davis, Indira Gandhi and Albert Einstein

8. Factors that modify birth order influence
Age Difference between siblings
a space of 5+ years may create a 2nd family with birth order characteristics being repeated
Gender
if a 2nd born child is the 1st born male/female, siblings may have characteristics of oldest child

9. Factors that modify birth order influence
Physical Differences
if a 2nd born male is 5" taller and 30 lbs. heavier than the 1st born brother their birth order roles may be reversed. Also, a sibling with a serious physical disability or illness may create role reversal

10. Factors that modify birth order influence
Birth order of parents
Parents tend to over-identify with the child in the same birth order position as they held.