How birth order affects personality

Lauren Sandler, MA, Journalist, and Author explains how a child's birth order and whether or not they have siblings affects their personality and characteristics
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How birth order affects personality

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It's interesting because only children and oldest children score highest on intelligence tests and tend to have a reputation for being the highest achievers. And you can kind of understand that with oldest children. They need to play a parental role within their family and they often reflect their parents. Whereas youngest children are often real radicals who get to live on their own terms a little bit more. Only children are fascinating. Because only children tend to be a little bit more of a wild card. You can stick with your parents model. Or you can take all of that intelligence and verbal ability and go in a totally different direction with it based on other factors of your personality or upbringing. So you could be conservative. Or you could also be really radical. And I find the potential in that range plus the higher achievement that only children tend to have to be an exciting thing.

Lauren Sandler, MA, Journalist, and Author explains how a child's birth order and whether or not they have siblings affects their personality and characteristics

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Lauren Sandler, MA

Journalist & Author

Lauren Sandler is the author of One and Only: The Freedom of Having an Only Child and the Joy of Being One, and a journalist who writes on cultural politics and gender issues for publications like Time, The New York Times, and Slate. And she’s as an only child and the mother of one herself. 

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