not necessarily smarter but had more time spent on them by the parents during their formative years than those that came later...They studied kids from birth to age 14 and can already determine their wage earning capabilities?
My bro was born 14 years before me and he was NOT smarter than me.
Easily explainable on a statistical basis. Birth defects increase with older parents. The optimal age is around 20 years. Children born to parents of much greater age, in their 40’s or 50’s for example, will affect the statistics.
“First-born children are smarter than their younger siblings...”
? Had to look to see if this was a story from 40-50 yrs ago, cuz that’s about how long ago I remember hearing about it.
I guess if someone is going to pay to do the study no matter how redundant, someone will gladly take the money.
I had 3 older siblings, they were smarter as far as IQ but they had near zero common sense. I am glad I received the common sense and only a little less smarts. ;-)
The eldest in our family skipped so much school, she was expelled at age 14 and it was not due to her inate intelligence, I can assure you.
Not in my family.
We all have the smarts, but our choices were very different. In my clan #3 is the most successful (the way the world measures it.)
I had noticed something similar in high school.
Virtually all of my friends were either first born, only children, or born after a significant period of time after the previous child. Almost without exception, we excelled over our younger siblings academically, in success in careers, and in a marked loss of “screwing up” in life.
This carried over into college and into general life choices. While not every girl I dated was in the same category, looking back, my most compatible relationships were with women with the same quality, including my wife.
Maybe it’s all coincidence. Maybe it has something to do with a few years of undivided attention from parents. Maybe it’s driven by parent expectations. But it seems to indicate some cause and effect, at least in my experience.
There is an older study that showed the correlation is to the average age of the household you grow up in. So the first born starts life with two adults, the next with two adults and a child, etc. How that works in the last couple of decades with kids farmed off to daycare centers full of kids, I don’t know.
My oldest is not the smartest. It’s unclear so far whether #3, #6, or #8 will prove the most brilliant.
This has irked my younger sister for decades now.
Doesn’t this study also prove that keeping the mother home raise the child increases life success?
Being the firstborn of eight, I can tell you all that there are exceptions...
Some of us who were first born children were told early on we were “the example” for our younger siblings. We were expected to use good manners, get good grades and be responsible for watching over our younger brothers and-or sisters.
The sad part of studies like this is they use statistical noise to make predictions that are used for social engineering. These small variations in intelligence & birth order may be due to any number of factors.
bull ....
not necessarily smarter but had more time spent on them by the parents during their formative years than those that came later...Damnit
My sister who is 2.5 years younger than me used to sit behind me at home when my mom was using flashcards to help me leasrn my letters in first grade. My sister would call them out before me. I used to get furious. :-)
This belief is why the first born was the first in line to be king and we all know how well that turned out...