Are first born smarter?

[MichaelB]

First hand experience taught me that first born children are indeed advantaged, here is an explanation. Birth order doesn’t affect your personality—just your intelligence | Ars Technica

A new study published in PNAS finds that firstborn children tend to score higher on objective measures of intelligence and self-reported measures of intelligence. But it finds that there are no birth-order effects on other personality characteristics.

I'm not yet convinced intelligence is correlated to birth order, (at least with my siblings). This part, about parents limited resources, is interesting. Maybe the child that complains about a sibling being loved more has a point.
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The predominant social and psychological theory is that parents have more emotional and intellectual resources to give the first child (at least until a second child arrives); this boosts the intelligence of the firstborn.

 

[aaronc879]

My older brother is considerably smarter than I am. So that's one in favor of first=smarter.

 

[easysurfer]

I say not always the case.

Even if first borns score higher in IQ, perhaps parents pay more attention to the first borns? Nature vs nurture. I can imagine too that first borns are often giving more responsibility, so as a result end up with more accomplishments then the younger ones, well, at least in the eyes of the family.

 

[Pbkmaine]

Third born here, and my tested IQ is much higher than my two older brothers.

 

[braumeister]

Within the margin of error, I would think.

From The Economist:

On average, this translated to a difference of 1.5 IQ points between first and second siblings. That figure agrees with the consensus from previous studies, and thus looks confirmed.

 

[mpeirce]

It took you later-borns this long to figure this out?

 

[REWahoo]

Hard for me to say - my oldest sibling was an only child.

 

[Animorph]

Absolutely!

 

[omni550]

Second born of two, smarter than #1.

omni

 

[Midpack]

Not in my family. The first born has a higher EQ, the second born a higher IQ. But one data point means nothing...

Would not surprise me if IQ and EQ are inversely correlated though?

 

[Meadbh]

The plural of anecdote is not data.

 

[aaronc879]

Hard for me to say - my oldest sibling was an only child.

My IQ is too low to figure this out. PM me the answer, please.

 

[Accidental Retiree]

The plural of anecdote is not data.

Love this!

 

[haha]

Not according to my younger brother.

 

[rodi]

I agree it's probably in the margin of error...

I'm the youngest and had the highest tested IQ (but fairly close). My younger son scored higher on the Raven Matrices test (what our district uses for GATE testing) than his older brother.

In my siblings case- my brother (middle child) was the best academically - but a mess socially. My sister was the best socially (still is)... and a motivated student. I was a wierdo socially (still am...) and didn't like studying... but could often get good grades with little effort... I'm not sure how predictive the IQ tests are on success....

 

[DJRR]

Of course. And God loves us better too

The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Consecrate to me every firstborn male. The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to me, whether human or animal.” Exodus 13:1-2

This also comes with a heavy load of expectation, responsibility, and guilt

 

[braumeister]

The plural of anecdote is not data.

You're right, of course. Anecdotes (short accounts of a particular incident or event, especially of an interesting or amusing nature) have nothing to do with data (a series of observations, measurements, or facts; information).

Still, there are many who would disagree.

However, since I've already derailed the topic, I feel I must continue. By chance, I recently came across the origin of the word anecdote. As a linguistic trivia buff, I can't resist sharing it. Normal people should click away from this page now.

Justinian, emperor of the Byzantine Empire from 527 to 565, was one of the few really great emperors. He had a historian, Procopius, in his court who liked to write brief accounts of some of the incidents he observed among the nobility. Some tales were witty and pleasant, but most were indecent or absurd. He never intended them to be published, so he gave them the title "Anecdota", a Greek word meaning "unpublished, kept secret".

On the off chance that anyone is still reading this, you might be interested in my source. It's a delightful book published in 1950. My paperback copy is from 1972. Hundreds of marvelous stories like this about common, everyday words.

Thereby Hangs a Tale - Stories of Curious Word Origins

by Charles Earle Funk (yes, he of Funk & Wagnalls fame).

 

[Meadbh]

Thanks, brau. I come to this from the field of medicine, where the almighty randomized controlled trial reigns supreme. That said, anecdotes may be illustrative, and they have human interest.

https://sites.google.com/site/skepticalmedicine//the-plural-of-anecdote-is-not-data

And yes, I am an Only. I was subjected to an IQ test in grade school. My score was 138.

 

[Philliefan33]

As the oldest child, I will agree with the premise without even reading the article . Haha.

If there is any statistically significant difference, I think it would be due to the first kid getting more one-on-one time in the early development stages ( I think I spoke to my oldest more than my youngest, because we were the only two people in the house most of the day until baby came along) and the oldest being given more responsibility as the kids get older.

 

[UnrealizedPotential]

Not in my family. I doubt birth order has anything to do with intelligence. I think alot of it has to do with random luck.

 

[Philliefan33]

As an aside, I do have my own theory, based on a study of two AAU basketball teams, that a team of first-borns is tougher than a team of younger siblings.

One year I was coaching my youngest on a team that was composed entirely of younger siblings. In fact, 8 out of 10 of them were the babies of the family. The team was talented but didn't have a "refuse to lose" attitude. If we lost, none of them seemed to care...the game was fun, there will be another, let's socialize.

The same season, my oldest daughter was on a team of all first-borns. They were all accustomed to leading/being in charge so sometimes there were clashes, but that team was tough to beat. They just wouldn't accept a loss. When they did lose, the players would rehash the game and analyze what went wrong. They were grumpy after a loss.

Of course after a decade of coaching youth sports I decided the perfect basketball team would be composed of ten athletic orphans. But that's a different conversation.

 

[Bestwifeever]

Second-born here. I learned to read exactly when my year-older sister did--she came home from school every day and taught me what she had learned that day. I think she is smarter.

 

[Ronstar]

First born here, and in my case, the answer is yes


Sent from my iPhone .using Early Retirement .//82339)

 

[timo2]

Intelligence is based on multiple things, including womb conditions.

I'm a middle child (boomer), and as such have noticed that many first born are often bossy and prone to arrogance. That's just a middle child's view, so don't be offended.

Culturally, the first wave of the baby boomer generation were generally first born children. Most the historical activities of boomers in the 1960's were the doings of all the first born boomers. just sayin.

 

[ER Eddie]

In psychology, there is a fairly well known association between being a first-born child and landing in the "achiever" or "hero" role in the family. This does not happen in all cases, of course, but often enough. Parents invest a lot of emotional energy and attention on their first-born (including neurotic needs), and the first-born has no siblings to help diffuse that energy.

So, the first-born is more likely to end up being the achiever/hero in the family, the "good boy" or "good girl," who puts a lot of effort into achieving along conventional lines, which includes doing well in school. In turn, doing well in school correlates with doing well on IQ tests -- which are largely a measure of the kinds of things taught in school (not equivalent to other forms of intelligence, btw, such as emotional or social intelligence).

So, if there is a correlation between first-borns and higher IQ scores, it's not a genetic gift; it's the result of upbringing and some of the unique gifts, pressures, and neuroses bestowed on first-borns (of whom I am one).