Born to Create
Birth order shapes our lives in surprising ways—from
achievement to rebellion, from conformity to creativity.
MAY/JUNE 2002—Psychologist Frank Sulloway’s landmark
book, Born to Rebel
(Pantheon, 1996), put a twist on the familiar nature-nurture debate—and was
both applauded and decried. By applying Darwinian natural selection to the
family unit, Sulloway concluded that individual creativity was linked to birth
order.
Now a visiting professor at the University of
California-Berkeley’s Institute of Personality and Social Research, Sulloway
maintains that certain personality traits are influenced by birth order, and
that siblings compete for niches within the family to receive attention and
approval. Sulloway measured what are known as the Big Five personality traits:
conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness, extraversion, and neuroticism. He
found that siblings strategically used these aspects of personality to their advantage
within the family.
According to Sulloway, firstborns
tend to identify more closely with their parents and to be highly
conscientious. They are less agreeable and more assertive than their younger
siblings, in part because being older and bigger gives them dominance.
Laterborns need to be more agreeable and sociable to flourish in the family
system. They usually branch out their interests to compete in a different
niche, making them more open to alternative experiences in which they will not
be compared to older siblings. Only children, who have no sibling rivals, tend
to be intermediate on many traits and are free to occupy whatever niche they
want. Says Sulloway: “Only children are the most unpredictable group.”
Firstborns win more Nobel Prizes, and laterborns
start more revolutions, Sulloway says. “Firstborns and laterborns are creative
in different ways,” he says. “Firstborns are high on any kind of creativity or
intellectual achievement within the system. Context matters. If you ask people
if they see themselves as deep thinkers, firstborns more often will score
higher. They try to fulfill parental expectations to achieve in conventional,
academic ways. Younger siblings are much more likely to accept radical
innovations in science and social thought. Younger siblings were the earliest
backers of the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment.”
Sulloway thinks that when individuals shape history,
their birth-order personalities are congruent with the times. “A radical
revolution will bring out traits that we see in those individuals within their
families. History taps the sentiments that we’ve grown up with, in our
families.” In particular, Sulloway says, prominent women in history tend to be
laterborn, even lastborn—the rebels of the family. They have “transgressed into
a man’s world because they were not willing to sit there and do what women were
generally supposed to do.”
Sulloway’s early research relied largely on
historical data, but the dramatic effects he found in history have not shown up
as strikingly in self-reported personality tests. So Sulloway devised a
personality test in which individuals rate themselves as well as a sibling.
“When you measure personality in that manner, dramatic birth-order differences
emerge,” he says.
“The effects are marked within a given family.”
Using these new tests, Sulloway has collected data from more than two hundred
thousand people. (To participate, go to www.outofservice.com and take either
the Star Wars Twin Test or the Big Five Personality Test. You’ll be scored and
your results added to the database.)
Though we can’t replicate Sulloway’s tests here, he
adapted some questions into a quiz measuring the Big Five. Take it and see how
you fare. For each question, rate both yourself and then a sibling—or, if
you’re an only child, rate a friend.
Relative Rating
I see myself/my sibling as someone who …
1 …tends to be
disorganized
a) Agree strongly
b) Agree moderately
c) Neutral
d) Disagree moderately
e) Disagree strongly
2 …perseveres until the
task is finished
a) Agree strongly
b) Agree moderately
c) Neutral
d) Disagree moderately
e) Disagree strongly
3 …can be cold and aloof
a) Agree strongly
b) Agree moderately
c) Neutral
d) Disagree moderately
e) Disagree strongly
4 …likes to cooperate
with others
a) Agree strongly
b) Agree moderately
c) Neutral
d) Disagree moderately
e) Disagree strongly
5 …has an assertive
personality
a) Agree strongly
b) Agree moderately
c) Neutral
d) Disagree moderately
e) Disagree strongly
6 …is fun-loving, makes
people laugh
a) Agree strongly
b) Agree moderately
c) Neutral
d) Disagree moderately
e) Disagree strongly
7 …is a deep thinker
a) Agree strongly
b) Agree moderately
c) Neutral
d) Disagree moderately
e) Disagree strongly
8 ….is conventional,
traditional
a) Agree strongly
b) Agree moderately
c) Neutral
d) Disagree moderately
e) Disagree strongly
9 …can be tense
a) Agree strongly
b) Agree moderately
c) Neutral
d) Disagree moderately
e) Disagree strongly
10 …has high self-esteem
a) Agree strongly
b) Agree moderately
c) Neutral
d) Disagree moderately
e) Disagree strongly
Results: Remember, these are only probabilities and tendencies: we
are all unique individuals with our own complex histories. Laterborns tend to
agree on questions 1, 4, and 6; and disagree on questions 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, and
9. (Some of these questions were designed to make the responses seem less
obvious.) Specifically, firstborns tend to be organized, to persevere until a
task is finished, to be cold and aloof, to be assertive, to consider themselves
deep thinkers, conventional, and tense. All these traits come from their status
in the family as ‘surrogates’ or stand-ins for their parents, reflecting their
parents’ values. Their tension comes from anxiety about potential loss of
status. In contrast, laterborns tend to be less organized, to persevere less,
to be cooperative, friendly, agreeable, fun-loving, unconventional, and to have
low self-esteem. In the latter case, that’s because they are self-conscious and
measure themselves against their more mature and ‘competent’ siblings.
Originally
published in Science & Spirit magazine.
