A New Study Found That Middle Children Rule When It Comes To Three Personality Traits
If anyone paid attention to us, you might have noticed.
Middle children, your moment of vindication has arrived. Perhaps you’re an oft-overlooked victim of middle child syndrome. Maybe you’ve suffered for years in the shadow of your older sibling. Your search for validation ends here, for a new study has declared that middle children are, in fact, the best.
Well, “the best” might be a stretch. But, the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that middle children rank higher than their siblings in multiple categories of positive personality traits, including honesty and kindness.
As an oldest sibling, I’d like to review these findings. Anyways...
Researchers Michael C. Ashton and Kibeom Lee from the University of Calgary set out to find whether siblings matter in personality development — and how birth order, and the number of siblings, effect personality development into adulthood.
Birth order has long been thought to contribute to personality, although some recent research has suggested that the effect might be negligible. However, these studies tested only a few personality traits — prompting Ashton and Lee to wonder what could be revealed if more traits were studied.
The researchers decided to use the HEXACO Personality Inventory to see if differences arose between siblings. The model studies 6 traits: Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience. They examined the self-reported HEXACO scores of two cohorts, the first including 700,000 adults from across the globe. For the second, smaller cohort of 70,000 adults, the researchers also assessed whether sibship size, or the number of siblings, effected personality outcomes.
In both groups, middle children ranked the highest in Honesty-Humility and Agreeableness, followed by last-borns, oldest-borns, and lastly, only children.
In the cohort where sibship size was considered, those with more siblings ranked higher in Honesty-Humility and Agreeableness than only children (apologies for adding fuel to the fire of only children stereotypes).
But fear not, oldest and only children, we won in one category. Only children scored higher in Openness than those with siblings, while oldest children ranked highest in the same category compared to middle and youngest siblings.
The researchers noted that their findings differed from recent research that suggested birth order, and sibship size, had little effect on personality. However, they suggested the HEXECO model allowed for these differences to reveal themselves.
More researchers might have to replicate the study to find out for certain if middle children are truly to be crowned as the best sibling. But until then, middle kids, take your place on the throne.
