Researchers have tossed around birth order and personality, and the results are in, and they may be comforting.

If you have siblings, where in the line do you fall? Too often, beliefs seemingly backed up by scientific research support the status of one child over another because of their positioning in their births.

How many times have we heard that the firstborn is the "golden child" to whom everything is directed and who carries the family's hopes? Some people may perceive the first child as more talented, more mature, and even favored. Research suggests that the second child may have a slight advantage over the first because of the knowledge gained from raising the first child. Where did all this come from and what is the research?

Does where someone stands among their siblings have an effect on their life that lasts? Scientists and regular people alike have been interested in this question for over 100 years. Francis Galton, who was Charles Darwin's half-cousin and the youngest of nine children, observed in 1874 that there was an excessive number of firstborn children in a group of English experts.

Galton thought parents might give their oldest kids extra attention, which helped them do well in school. After fifty years, Alfred Adler, the second of six children, added psychological traits to the study of birth order in psychology. Adler believed that firstborn children thought they were lucky, but they also had more responsibility and feared losing their position, which made them anxious. He thought later-born children whose parents spoil them too much would lack social empathy.

In some cultures, birth order is a distinct characteristic that no one can escape. Balinese names immediately show what order a person was born in: first-born is called Wayan, second-born is called Made, and so on. Because family ranks are so important in everyday life, birth order effects might be especially strong in Bali.

But researchers have predominantly conducted studies on birth order and outcomes like intelligence, educational attainment, and personality in "WEIRD" populations, which comprise people from educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic Western countries. Researchers need to shift their attention from these samples to more diverse communities in order to better understand what makes people human and what makes them different.

Some studies have shown that mothers are less likely to give as much attention to later-born children and are less likely to have breastfed them. Several factors during these early years and birth order and physical fitness have interested researchers. Knowing how birth order might affect fitness is important for two reasons: first, it can help us understand how birth order affects later life outcomes; second, it can help us figure out when the potentially adverse effects of having a high birth order show up.

Some research has proposed a number of interesting and potentially contradictory findings. Men born earlier tend to have higher emotional stability, persistence, social skills, responsibility, and leadership qualities compared to those born later. The researchers also discovered that the order of birth affects job sorting. For example, kids born first are more likely to be managers, while kids born later are more likely to be self-employed.

This research suggests that children born earlier are more prone to pursuing jobs that demand leadership, social skills, and specific psychological traits. Finally, it suggests that the mix of male and female members in the family may play an important part, primarily in how many children are born into the family.

The researchers also propose that the order of birth affects job sorting. Kids born earlier are likelier to work in jobs requiring leadership, social skills, and the Big Five psychological traits. They are:

openness to new experiences (creative and curious vs. cautious and constant)
carefulness (being planned and efficient vs. careless)
extraversion (being friendly and active vs. shy and quiet)
agreeableness (being kind and caring vs. critical and judging)
neuroticism (being sensitive vs. strong or sure of yourself)

What about the personality-related risk-taking trait researchers have attributed to later-born children? The competitive nature of the family system may play a part in the effects of birth order of risk-taking propensity. Still, these effects do not forever change a child’s risk-taking preferences. Instead, this tendency seems to change depending on where they are.

Research on the birth order effect has differing results in studies that are normally small in participant numbers, and there isn't strong proof that birth order affects intelligence and personality traits. One salient finding from research was that first-born children may benefit intellectually from the amount of verbal interaction they have with their parents.

The good news is that your birth order in your family of origin does not lock you into a specific personality type.