Does Birth Order Affect Your Personality? 

He talked the least about middle children... we're still getting over looked even here.

As a middle child I couldn’t help but notice that you spent the majority of the video talking about oldest and youngest children, glossing over the middle children. Stereotype confirmed, we’re always forgotten.

"...Doesn't explain why your middle sister ran off to start a rock band. That's because she is awesome." Opinion noted of a man with his own rock band.

hank: extraversion me: olive oil?

That John background... Big Brother is watching

SciShow Psych is a brilliant channel! Loved this :D

Did they control for gender in these studies? A proponent of the theory I know attached different characteristics to an eldest son vs. an eldest daughter. I guess I still like the theory because it suits my personal mythology.

I can see Hank evolving, from kind of shy but passionate teacher to charismatic relatable teacher (that is, yes, still passionate too, i just wanted to use 2 adjectives yknow XD)

Only child isn't selfish child! Only children of the world, UNITE! (Please bring your own stuff because I'm not sharing mine. Thank you.)

I have to call this episode out as bunk. While birth order itself does not determine your personality, parent's treatment of their children due to this birth order most definitely will. 1. Parents will have the older child watch the younger siblings - this happens to most multi-child families on a somewhat regular basis. This does not make the oldest more responsible but it sets the parental tone and expectation that they will be, so any child seeking to live up to their parent's expectations will most likely become more responsible as a result. 2. While the youngest doesn't have to be the spoiled child, they tend to be due to parental expectations. Most parents (myself included) when they realize they will be watching for the last time all the joys of a child growing up, will tend to hold onto that more. In addition, the youngest is simply smaller and less capable than their older siblings at any point in time due to their immaturity which effects their parent's expectations. Even if they become just as mature as their siblings at the same age, the parent's expectation for less maturity in general is still present. Lastly, when the youngest does leave the home they typically do so after the older siblings have left the home. Parents tend to earn more money over time so the disposable income is typically much greater than at any previous times in their life and they have one child in the home to spend some of the money on, so they tend to get more spoiled in this environment. There are plenty of exceptions to the rule but saying parental treatment and expectations have no effect on a child's development is just silly.

I think that one of the problems is that the stereotypes aren't very nuanced. Years ago, I read a book that was called Birth Order and You. If I remember correctly, it didn't so much talk about youngests as being spoiled. It was more along the lines that they tend to hang back and wait for overt cues when tasks needed to be done, possibly making them appear lazy. That's just one example that comes to mind. I remember the book seeming to be quite logical.

I get along with my 5 siblings, I am the youngest, and for some reason my sister (who is 14 months older than me) sometimes nearly got me killed XD She taught me to swim by throwing me into a deep pool, gave me jalapeño peppers saying they were candy, gave me my only two scars so far, hit me with a whip "playing", nearly burned me alive with boiling water in the shower, and so on. We get along most of the time, but she is the only one whom as adults I've fought seriously, she is very controlling and I won't stand that, so one time I pushed her out of my room with enough force that she fell on her butt but almost bounced back from the anger but as she was jumping on me I slammed the door on her face. Another time she hit me with a frying pan. But last fight was over 6 years ago, so it seems we are cooling down, and also helps she lives 7 time zones away.

Where do you draw the line at what a "first born" child is though? I have an older brother but we have different dad's and he has an older sister on his dad's side and I'm a first born on my dad's side but I'm my mother's second child, so where do places us in these studies? And if different studies place differently doesn't that make them too inconsistent to be valid???

Only child, pretty self-involved, but only in a passive sense. No siblings, no interesting family, no pets (allergies), no relationship partner. The most reliable person that's there for me in my life, even if far from the best one, is me. Friends are pretty great to spend time with though, and it's nice to be included in a group. I look for people that aren't being included and things and make some effort to include them, as I know how it feels to be overlooked.

I'm always psyched for new video

You're not wrong that John is a bit neurotic though:)

and again they forget about the only child

where does Dave Green fit in birth order?

"I have an older brother.." John flashes in the background xD

Youngest offspring, here. From childhood, up until now, it's been a constant factor that when any of my three older sisters try to grab my parents' attention (most notably the trouble-making second-born), then I may as well not exist. And because my parents have been through the whole experience 3 times before, many positive things that I do are played down, when compared to the attention that my sisters got/get. For me, being born last ensured my place on the back-burner.

Never understood why only children are regarded as "selfish." In my non-scientific opinion, I have noticed the children of very large families seem to be more likely to say "thats mine, don't touch it" because so few things in their house are theirs, and theirs alone. Only children seem to share more, because they have excess of everything.

Thank you Hank, your videos are always interesting!

i have always wondered how birth-order theorists account for blended families as an individual often holds more than one position in a family now. For example, I am my mother's eldest child but my father's middle child. This would seem to suggest I should be both neurotic and rebellious.

I always hated being the older sister and the stereotype. I could write an essay on it if I wanted to.

I have my personality and differential psychology exam tomorrow... this video is definitely helpful! Thanks guys!!!

2:30 "Like, I have an older brother, he's pretty neurotic." I see how it is, Hank, I see how it is.

0:44 I really love you animated them to come in with at tilts like that XD

You are fab! Thanks for confirming what I have thought for many years.

Love this video! I often think that birth order theory is self-perpetuating. Because somebody came up with it, people think it's true and try to follow its rules.

yay new SciShow!

I have four siblings and I am the youngest. My oldest brother James is very laid back and he looks out for me but is not over bearing. My sister who is the 2nd oldest Courtney is the "nerd" of the family cause she likes anime and manga. She's a very anxious person and not open to trying new things. Aaron or the 3rd oldest is the "smart or perfect" kid. He plays 4 instruments, is on the honor role, straight A student, and he is in the band. He's very open to new things and is more of the quiet introvert who likes to joke around. Then theres me the youngest and I am not the most spoiled. My sister actually is. I am more of the artistic one. I like to draw and paint but I make straight A's and I'm on the honor role and I'm pretty laid back and am open to new things. The theory that birth order has to do with your personality is thrown out the window in my family.

the line regarding sister starting a rock band was pretty awesome ,I love you guys

Coooollllll I am supposed to have a presentation about this subject in a literally just an hour and I haven't collected anything like any information you are a lifesaver

This channel is awesome!

I love how accurate this videos are. They just feel very trustworthy, it's nice

Love these videos

I think that stereotypes do affect families still. I'm the middle child and I was told my whole life that I'm rebellious. Which isn't always a good thing so for me to say no to that is literally me rebelling so I end up being rebellious either way. 😧

i subscribed so fast the moment i saw a member of the Greene family. Yes Im a big crash course fan lol

Love this! Statements about birth order keep cropping up on Facebook, and I've always been skeptical. Rightly so, it seems! :)

I'd like to take a moment here to suggest that despite what language is used. Birth oder theory isn't intended to explain "personality" the way we understand it today [the big five traits], but rather tendencies in how people learn to interact with others based on how they were taught to interact with others in their family structure. it's less about who you are and more about how you tend to think of, relate to and treat others around you. Also, calling it birth order theory is deceptive, and the original suggestion flawed because birth order does not equal role. Discounting it entirely is like discounting entirely that your experience of your mother and father have an impact on how you come to see people and relationships. At its core, it's a suggestion that what role you fill in your family as a child affects how you learn to interact with others. It's greatest flaw was that it was too simple and made too many assumptions.... and isn't actually a "personality" measure.

I love hank green. Literally watching the video because he is in it . His previous videos helped me with biology and chemistry .

The rule applies perfectly to my siblings and myself.

I like your pragmatic approach when judging the findings of studies.

maybe newer generations have changed this mold and Alfred Alder's theory was more relevent in his time

I would say that those cliche stereotypes are somewhat true at least for younger children. It is a cause and effect thing but as children mature, they learn whats right from wrong and become less spoiled or rebel. As for why older siblings tend to have higher IQ is because they had a longer life experience so they know more about the world. Therefore scoring higher on IQ tests.

The birth order theory doesn't work very well in my family. I'm the second oldest and the most responsible of my siblings, while all of my other sisters are varying levels of spoiled. I only became responsible because my older sibling failed to do so and I picked up on it at an early age.

Who else is the oldest sibling in their family? #intellectuals

*I have middle child syndrome. The black sheep, wild child. Rehab was fun.* #overlookedchild

It matches perfectly with my family, though

For pure curiosities sake, I would love to see any information on a two sibling household.

All middle child here unite!! the most responsible, mature and nobody knows we exist!!

the only difference i've seen in the people around me is that older siblings are more likely to laugh when someone else is in minor pain/annoyed while younger siblings are more likely to sympathize/make people stop laughing at them

Out of my siblings I was the middle child. I had an older sister and a younger brother growing up. My sister was 3 years older than me and was quite responsible, she was also like a second mother to me. I was the misfit clearly. I was on a different wave length than my family. I still got along with them but I was always misunderstood and unique. Doing things my own way and not being easily influenced by social constructs. Societies expectations of me, and my endless questions of everything around me (I was more punk in my ideals). My brother was 3 years younger and had it easy and became spoiled as a child. He got away with a lot of things. Perhaps my individual experience is similar to other middle children's experience. But it isn't completely inaccurate for the sibling birth order idea. Perhaps there is some truth that is in it.

I love this guy as a host 👌🏻

I am a middle kid, but I am more responsible than my older brother...( I am a twin so maybe that has anything to do with it?)

Lol at the good burn on John

Shots fired! At Jon...

We were advised to not adopt outside of birth order. I would be interested in more Scishow videos on this topic. Thank you for the great content!

My husband was raised as an only child after his father straight up stole him from his mom at 2 and it definitely effected certain things, like his ability to share or create realistic boundaries (if you leave your important work docs next to the door where all the elementary aged kids have their stuff its unlikely to remain there weeks later when you need it and as the adult it's up to you to understand this and find a better location for storing important docs like the lockable filing cabinet)

My family, and my best friends' family lines up perfectly with birth order theory.

My professor conducted one of the mentioned studies...that feels kind of weird :D

My favorite part “So Birth Order Theory doesn’t actually explain why your middle sister ran off to start a Rock Band. That’s just cause she’s awesome.” 😂🤣😂🤣 I laughed so hard at this! I love it! 🤟🏾

thank you hank green. i am the awesome middle sister who runs away and starts a band.

As my sister and I grew up I (the youngest) became the successful/responsible one, while she (the straight A student heavily involved in extra curricular activities) is the one still living at home.

As a spoiled youngest child; yep.

Lol I am actually a middle sister in my family, and if you count playing Rock Band on my PlayStation as "running off to start a rock band" then I've satisfied Hank's fun example at the end of the video 😂

It seems as though those studies focused on internal family relationships rather extensively. Any idea if there were any significant findings regarding out-of-family aspects? Financial responsibility? Positive/Negative world outlook? Emotional stability?

4:17 I knew this all along... Some compensation for having to deal with the little buggers ;).

I have a twin brother and no other siblings. What does that mean

scishow is amazing

We're all bullheaded, my sisters and I, with my older sister being bossy and parent - like. I was quite easy - going, but I often felt a squeeze in the mornings, getting ready for school amongst grumpy family (except my dad; he's a rock). I was cheerful out of self - defense. My little sister was a leader with the ability to tell where people most excelled. But when she got an idea in mind, she wouldn't let go, she would force it to happen. Strangely, I think, as a middle child, I was the most open to new ideas. Truly, though, as we grew up, each f us took on traits of the others.

I’m 12 years older than my brother, this made me laugh a lot- sharing this with him XD

I am the oldest sibling. When I was a kid, my parents were fairly young and not too busy, so they had more time to enforce stricter rules, I had regular curfew and daily schedule, and I had better study habit because both parents had enough time to contribute actively. By the time my siblings came, however, my parents are less active because of their old age (the age difference between me and my siblings are pretty far, 8 and 12 years respectively, my youngest sibling's was a risky pregnancy because mother was too old), so my parents tend to be more passive *and my siblings don't even have curfew* (they go to sleep only when mother scolds them). They ended up a bit spoiled and less self-reliant. A lot of factors resulted in different ways of parenting, thus it also would affect the children's personalities

I'm the youngest and im not open to new experiences and im neurotic lol the weirdest situation i have seen was a sister that was about 10 years older than her younger siblings and despite that she acted like a little child. her two younger siblings which were actually ages 8 and 5 acted WAY more mature then her it was absurd!

I wonder if there is any correlations between personality and the wealth of parents while the child is growing up. For example, my parents weren't even out of high school yet when they had me and I grew up fairly poor for most of my childhood. But my parents moved up in the world and my siblings got a more middle class upbringing than I did (there is a 7 year gap in age between me and the next oldest). My siblings got to have things like game consoles and fad toys where I didn't get those things until I was an adult. Could it be that the youngest is at least perceived to be more "spoiled" simply because there is just more money in the household?

Interesting. I remember when I first read something about birth order personality traits and I practically cried in joy at how it explained so much of my feelings of isolation and of feeling like the one that didn't fit in my family. I always believed that there was so much more to it, but it helped me understand why my parents and sister couldn't understand me and vice versa. Both of my parents are youngest children and both of my mom's parents are youngest as well. All actually were spoiled (not due to birth order necessarily). My mother spent my childhood actively telling me I was responsible for my sister - her wellbeing, her happiness and that was all that mattered. And that "we have to play down" any success I had (from good grades to getting my drivers license etc.) so it didn't make my sister feel bad because it wasn't fair to her that she had to wait or didn't get what I got. This did make me fairly neurotic, but because of what I was taught. I was taught that because of my birth order - but it's not inherently because of my birth order. I think more factors contribute like narcissism, mom had one sibling, and older brother, dad's a twin with older sisters, both are boomers - aka the spoiled generation in general (not an insult, just a fact in the US especially as parents who lived through the depression and 2 world wars wanted their kids to have everything) In other words, personality is too complex to be easily slotted into neat, easily defined categories and we should maybe stop trying.

For my siblings and me, the birth order clichés are spot-on.

Every IQ-related test and sample Mensa test I've ever seen had those questions that you matched or predicted patterns of geometric shapes. I always thought these stupid with no basis in real life, unlike word relationships and mathematics puzzles. In fact, I think solving jigsaw puzzles is a much better measure of and training in life intelligence than those ambiguous, abstract geometries.

Fantastic facts about birth order affects our personality, Mister Hank Green.

AHAHAHAHAH THE MOMENT JOHN FLASHES AT THE BACK OF THE SCREEN "I have an older brother, he's pretty neurotic"

What I'm about to say is totally unrelated, but I have recently read a lot about latent inhibition and the condition called Low Latent Inhibition (LLI). It would be nice to hear about it on here.

I scored significantly higher than my older sister on an IQ test so that IQ fact is off for my family.

Firstborn are basically forced into becoming substitute parents for their younger siblings, and are expected to be more responsible from an early age as a result, not to mention going through the whole experience of having to be the default parenting guinea pig... yeah. Much fun and profit for the therapists!

Oldest of 9 siblings, I was the rebellious one. Didn't start a rockband but had other shenanigans going.

I have two brothers, one older, one younger, we are all 2 years apart. Birth order theory *NAILED IT.*

in my family it's definitely true. I'm the oldest, but also if you look at how we were in every year. I could walk to the grocery store by myself when I was 6. my brother when he was 9. my parents knew that I would just get what I need, and know how to walk there. mg brother, not so much. with money? my brother always needs to buy everything. never has enough. always asks out parents for new shoes, new clothes. like a kenzo shirt, etc. brand clothes.. I'm like. I just safe and buy something awesome, but I don't know what it is yet. maybe it isn't completely birth order, since I'm extremely responsible. well now not extremely, because I'm a teenager. so my peers are also a little more responsible. luckily.

Birth order absolutely influences personality. Firstborns are more likely to be Monarch archetypes and have either Si or Te somewhere in their primary function stack. Middle children are more likely to be Sage or Helpmate archetypes and have Se or Fi somewhere in their function stack. And younest children are more likely to be Fighter archetypes and have Se or Ne as their dominant or auxiliary function. Only children are a wildcard. Multiples develop personalities based partially on their birth order relative to siblings outside of their group, and partially on whoever among themselves first develops the strongest exteoverted functions.

I would guess that birth order affects personality, but the family affects how birth order affects personality

I have an older brother and a younger sister. My brother has always been a nice guy, never fought with any of us, he could be a bit shy to people, but then he started playing guitar... My sister is also a very nice girl, but she was the most spoiled one and the one who would easily get angry. I was the patient one, kinda quiet and I would always let my siblings take the biggest cookie or the front seat in the car (up until last year I had never sat in the front seat in the car and I'm 16).

I'm the older sibling but i'm the rebellious free-spirited open one and my stupid sister is trying to act all responsible it's so funny lmfao

Just Imagine yourselves in either the first, middle or the last role and you will more or less get to understand those different placements affecting and consequentially developing and shaping the unique personalities, traits and strengths of such a person. Eldest is about dealing that from being the only child you now have further new siblings to contend and keep an eye on and to being responsible of them being safe within the Family Belief and System. Also to occasionally taking the Authority to Lead as certain urgent circumstances arise. Middle is about existing and functioning as being the younger to the eldest and ALSO the elder to the youngest and to somehow making and keeping all these things miracalously work out great, together and well. They also would dislike discordance to stability and peace. Surprisingly they can be very talented and self reliant in getting what they want. The Last is about already being within an established family environment and to then be the innovator or the solution maker for the Family progression and/or its Values. They tend to get to be more lively, unique and creative but not to heavily more concerned of others as compared to their elders. They could either be the great last presentor of the Family or a TrailBlazing individualist breaking out or leading out from it. Well the only child is probably just as self pampered as are they a self reliant Unique Individual.

I took a psychology class and felt smart watching this lol. I had to test on Jung, Freud, the big five, etc.

I'm so tired of people not knowing anything about me but as soon as they know I'm the only child, they said I'm selfish, self-centred and spoiled

When silly online quizzes ask if i'm oldest middle or youngest, I don't know what to say, because I'm my mom's oldest and my dad's middle child. I sort of grew up half oldest and half middle, because sometimes my sister was with us and sometimes she wasn't.

I am a middle child and always very passionate about this subjects because we're always overlooked - which is also the case in this video.

Depression hits hard when one goes through a major personality change.

Acording to my parents, my oldest sister is more spoiled and dependant, while I, the youngest, tend to be more independant and reliable. Acording to them, they tried not to spoil me while giving me love and always tried to expose me to new experiences so I would be more open minded. Meanwhile, my nephew is an only child and from time to time he's a total asshat

4:32 John: okay Hank... whatever helps you sleep at night...

"The results were not super reliable" = "total crap"

I'd talk about what it's like to me a middle child but no one would pay any attention to it. Haha.