According to Adler’s theory, the firstborn of the family is treated with outmost care and spoiled before the other siblings arrived. The situation for this child starts out with excited parents and the child usually has everything he/she needs. When the younger sibling is conceived there is a sudden shift of attention of the parents. The new baby now receives more attention that the firstborn child. Thus the firstborn, in Adler’s theory, tries his/her best to regain this attention. The child desperately seeks the return of his/her parents’ full love and interest.
(Stein, 2007) Most firstborns feel dethroned by their younger siblings because they now have to share everything with the next child; thus, a firstborn learns to share. Also, the firstborn are given more responsibility than the other children, since they are the eldest; this could cause them to develop an authoritarian persona. (Mosak, 1999) The parents’ expectations for the firstborn are usually very high; they are pushed into the situation of being responsible and setting an example for their younger siblings.
These experiences might led the first born child to develop the qualities of a good leader, although usually firstborn children have lower self confidence than other children. (Stein, 2007) The Middleborn: Middle children do not encounter the same expectations and are not spoiled as the firstborn; however, they still get a portion of the attention that the firstborn child enjoys. What makes being the middle child interesting is that they not only experience a drive to be superior to the first child, but also must compete for attention and status among the younger siblings.
These experiences could cause inferiority with reference to their older siblings but superiority with reference to their younger siblings. (Stein, 2007) The Youngest Child: The youngest children are those who feel they have the least authority among the family members. Usually they respect and envy the oldest or the first born because of all the prestige and authority that he/she possesses. The youngest child could also be treated as the weakest and thus given more care and protection than any other child in the family. (Drescher & Stone 2004).
Because of this treatment, Adler speculated that the youngest child would usually have the highest inferiority complex among the children. Thus, according to the above-mentioned reasons, the youngest might either become the most or the least successful among the children. (Drescher &Stone 2004) According to Adler, a person’s birth order has a major effect on his/her personality as an adult. Although birth orders play a significant role it not the only contributing factor that shapes or affects a persons’ personality. (Drescher & Stone, 2004).
To further determine the importance and the effects of the birth order in a child and in a person’s personality and behavior, a study was conducted by Robert Zajonc. The focus of his studies and theories is the affect of birth order on the intellectual performance of the child. (Zajonc, 2001) In response to Zajonc’s collected data, he created the “confluence model” which shows that a child “younger than 11 years of age shows pessimistic or does not show any effect with respect to their intellectual performance while those who are older than 11 years of age show affirmative effects”.
(Zajonc, 2001) This can further be explained by the experience of the parents as they are raising the children. With the firstborn, they are more receptive to the stimulus around them, such as the emotions that are shown to them by other people. Also they are very concerned on matters that affect them or are related to them, they worried a lot and kept on thinking about the things that should be done. They are willing to learn new things and to adapt their ways to respond to the child’s needs (Drescher & Stone, 2004).
However, when the next child is born, they are more adept and are better equipped in nurturing and taking caring of the child due to prior experience that they have acquire. Since they are more prepared they create additional adjustments and further modifications to the way they treat the child with a concern as to what the first child might feel. (Ansbacher, 1964) There are several changes in the family environment which affect the two children’s’ experiences.
Zajonc’s study explained that these changes in the child’s social milieu can greatly affect the child’s personality, attitude, point of view, character and behavior. These findings revealed that, the Birth order of a child can greatly affect his/her intellectual performance (Drescher & Stone, 2004). Zajonc elaborated on the factor of lexical environment. In the case of the first born, the child is more likely to be presented with adult linguistic influences and words. (Zajonc, 2001) The child has no other siblings and is more exposed only to language that the adults use.
However, the second child is presented not only with the words coming from adults but also words coming from their older siblings. The younger sibling is presented with an environment that differs from that of the firstborn, thus their lexical capacity and maturity may also differ. Zajonc addresses the capacity to tutor. While the firstborn acquires information by asking his/her parents questions, the answers that are given may not be appropriate to his/her level of understanding (the answers that the parents give might be vague to his/her level of understanding) and may be difficult to comprehend.
These conditions might make the child afraid to ask further questions. However, when the second child arrives, the first child would gain authority and thus create confidence to him self. This is due to the fact that when the second child arrives the first born serve not only as a sibling or a playmate but also as a guide for the second child in learning things and in facing life. (MacDonald, 1971, p144-45).