Only child
- This article is about the birth order. For the musician, see Only Child (musician).
An only child is a child with no siblings, either biological or adopted. First-born children are temporarily only children and thus have a similar early family environment. The influence of being an only child is controversial, but a considerable amount of theory exists on the subject.
Adler's theory
Alfred Adler (1870-1937), an Austrian psychiatrist and a contemporary of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, included birth order dynamics in his theory of personality formation. He suggested that birth order can leave an indelible impression on an individual's style of life-- that is, the individual's habitual way of dealing with the tasks of friendship, love, and work. Other factors that may be equally influential are parental attitudes, organ inferiority, illness and disability, gender roles, and social circumstances. Adler believed that because only children have no rivals for their parents' affection, they may be pampered and spoiled by their parents, particularly the mother. He suggested that this could cause later interpersonal difficulties if the person is not universally liked and admired.[1]
Empirical research
A 1987 quantitative review of 141 studies on 16 different personality traits contradicted Adler's theory by finding no evidence of any maladjustment in only children. The primary finding was that only children are not very different from children with siblings. The main exception to this was the finding that only children are higher in achievement motivation.[2] A second analysis revealed that only children, first-borns, and children with only one sibling score higher on tests of verbal ability than later-borns and children with multiple siblings.[3]
The advantage of only children in test scores and achievement motivation may be due to the greater amount of parental attention they receive. According the Resource Dilution Model, parental resources (e.g. time to read to the child) are important in development. Because these resources are finite, children with many siblings receive fewer resources.[4]
The Big Five
Contemporary personality theorists generally agree that the "big five personality traits" (also known as Five Factor Model) represent a natural taxonomy of human personality variables. Across different languages, the vast majority of adjectives used to describe human personality fit into one of the following five areas, easily remembered by the acronym OCEAN: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. Factor analyses of personality tests also tend to cluster around these five factors.
In his book Born to Rebel, Frank Sulloway provides evidence that birth order influences the development of Big Five personality traits. Sulloway suggests that firstborns and only children are more conscientious, more socially dominant, less agreeable, and less open to new ideas compared to laterborns.[5] However, his conclusions have been challenged by other researchers,[6] who argue that birth order effects are weak and inconsistent. In one of the largest studies conducted on the effect of birth order on the Big Five, data from a national sample of 9,664 subjects found no association between birth order and scores on the NEO PI-R personality test.[7]
Notable people who are only children
This list includes children who have only step-siblings but not those who have half-siblings.
- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, American basketball player
- Lauren Bacall, American film and stage actress
- Pierce Brosnan, Irish actor
- Robert De Niro, American actor
- Leonardo DiCaprio, American actor
- Rudy Giuliani, American politician
- Tipper Gore, former second Lady of the United States
- Alan Greenspan, American economist
- Jean Harlow, American actress
- Lillian Hellman, American playwright
- Beth Howland, American actress
- Samuel L. Jackson, American actor
- Aled Jones, Welsh/British singer/presenter
- A.L. Keating, American Financial Analyst
- Neil Kinnock, Welsh/British politician
- Bob Knight, American basketball coach
- J. C. R. Licklider, computer scientist, 'father' of the internet
- Shirley Mason, American painter and psychiatric patient
- Haruki Murakami, Japanese author/novelist
- Jerry Orbach, American actor
- Alice Pearce, American actress/comedienne
- Terry Pratchett, British best-seller author
- Cole Porter, American composer and songwriter
- Natalie Portman, Israeli-American actress
- Bern'ard Quince, Australian Educator and Philosopher
- LeAnn Rimes, American singer
- Fred Rogers, American television host, also known as Mr. Rogers
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd president of the United States
- Arthur Scargill, British trade unionist
- Frank Sinatra , American singer/actor
- "Weird Al" Yankovic, American singer/musician/parodist
- Ramond Teller, American magician
- Bobby Vinton, American singer/songwriter/musician
- Betty White, American actress
- Alexei Yagudin, Russian figure skater
External links
- Birth order and intelligence
- No Little Emperors a blog written by, for, and about parents of only children
References
- ^ Adler, A. (1964). Problems of neurosis. New York: Harper and Row.
- ^ Polit, D. F. & Falbo, T. (1987) Only children and personality development: A quantitative review. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 49, 309-325.
- ^ Polit, D. F. & Falbo, T. (1988). The intellectual achievement of only children. Journal of Biosocial Science, 20, 275-285.
- ^ Downey, D.B. (2001). Number of siblings and intellectual development: The resource dilution explanation. American Psychologist, 56, 497-504.
- ^ Sulloway, F.J. (1996). Born to rebel: Birth order, family dynamics and creative lives. New York: Pantheon Books.
- ^ Harris, J. R. (2006). No two alike: Human nature and human individuality. WW Norton & Company.
- ^ Jefferson, T., Herbst, J. H., & McCrae, R. R. (1998). Associations between birth order and personality traits: Evidence from self-reports and observer ratings. Journal of Research in Personality, 32, 498-509.