Essay. soc - The effects of Birth Order. PDF

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It is an essay about the overall effects of birth order in one's life....

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Running head: EFFECT OF BIRTH ORDER ON SUCCESS

The Effect of Birth Order on Individual Siblings’ Definition of Success

Eli Dos Reis College of Southern Nevada

Running head: EFFECT OF BIRTH ORDER ON SUCCESS

The Effect of Birth Order on Individual Siblings’ Definition of Success Most of us have the assumption that the older child sets the mode for the younger siblings. In many cultures the older child has the expectation of being responsible. He or she should be successful in everything that they do. He or she should have financial success, be strong during difficult moments, and loving in any circumstance. For instance, in my family I am the oldest child. Many times I heard my mom saying that as the oldest I had to be an example for my younger siblings in many areas of life. The magazine Time published an article in 2007 saying the following: “In a recent survey of corporate heads conducted by Vistage, an international organization of ceos, poll takers reported that 43% of the people who occupy the big chair in boardrooms are firstborns, 33% are middle-borns and 23% are last-borns. Eldest siblings are disproportionately represented among surgeons and M.B.A.’s too, according to Stanford University psychologist Robert Zajonc. And a recent study found a statistically significant overload of firstborns in what is—or at least ought to be—the country's most august club: the U.S. Congress. "We know that birth order determines occupational prestige to a large extent," says Zajonc. There is some expectation that firstborns are somehow better qualified for certain occupations.” This article brought to my attention the fact that there is still a great body of research that demonstrates that first born may have greater financial success than their younger brothers and sisters. So my classmates and I decided to research how the birth order impacts perceived individual personal achievements amongst siblings. Specifically we wanted to figure out who the sibling thought would be the most successful financially in the years to come and how that

Running head: EFFECT OF BIRTH ORDER ON SUCCESS

correlated with their birth order. Our hypothesis was that the older siblings would be thought to have a higher potential for achievement than younger siblings. We created a six question questionnaire that would serve the purpose of determining whether birth order would affect the siblings’ perceived potential for achievement. Some of the questions were simply distraction questions so that the person taking the survey would not be able to figure out what the purpose of it was. For example one question stated, “Explain the steps of how you will reach your goal of achievement.” The questions that I am examining are the first and the fourth. The first question was supposed to determine what the participant’s definition of success is; whether they prioritized success in terms of family, finances, or college. The fourth question asked out of their siblings, which would achieve the highest level of success according to the definition that they chose from the first question (family, financial, or college). I personally gave eight people with a variety of religious backgrounds and ethnicities between 14 years and 21years old the questionnaire. Results In the questionnaires that I conducted 5 out of the 8 interviewed believed that the first born child would have the highest level of success as defined in the first question. This seems to fit with the Time article that was discussed showing that the eldest sibling have a higher probability for financial and other forms of success. One other interesting result was that half of the subjects thought that they themselves would have the highest level of success demonstrating a high level of personal optimism. My classmates also found in our collective data that about 91% of the respondents thought that they themselves would be the high achievers. So the big question is whether or not we interviewed

Running head: EFFECT OF BIRTH ORDER ON SUCCESS

lots of first borns. If we interviewed mostly first borns than our data would be skewed in favor of first borns simply because of the optimism that 91% of the population has to consider themselves as having the highest chance of success. . Another factor that limits the weight of the conclusions that we were able to make is that the questions on the questionnaire was very confusing. The first question intended to determine how the subject defines success was asked like this: What examples listed would YOU consider YOUR highest level of achievement. If the person being interviewed was only 15 years old they would never be able to say C) College because they are only 15 years old. The question should have asked for the subject’s definition of success and not “your highest level of achievement.” This was quite confusing. In one of the families only four out of the six children participated in the study which complicates further the conclusions that we can draw on birth order. It is difficult overall to draw scientific conclusions on how birth order affects levels of achievements from our study because of the many flaws of our study including the samples used for the study and the questions that we asked. In order to create a more balanced data set we should have studied only 3 children homes and made sure to have each one of the three fill out the questionnaire. Next time we should also clarify the wording on each of the questions that we ask and organize our data better so that each subject will be first, middle, or last born.

Running head: EFFECT OF BIRTH ORDER ON SUCCESS

Work Cited

Kluger, Jeffrey. "The Power of Birth Order - TIME." Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews - TIME.com. 17 Oct. 2007. Web. 01 Dec. 2010. ....