The oldest child is often bigger and can just take what they want, the youngest can use the whiny baby strategy to influence their parents, while middles often have to develop good negotiation tactics and people skills to get what they want, which could benefit them outside the home, she says. “I think that one of the benefits of growing up in a family with lots of children is that, if you’re in the middle, you have to negotiate a lot to get what you want,” Salmon says. 'If you’re in the middle, you have to negotiate a lot to get what you want' Middle-borns may be better negotiators “I’m not sure that one or two IQ points make much difference in terms of life outcomes,” she adds. Also, the IQ advantage among first-borns tends to be small-the difference between one or two points on an IQ test, Salmon says. “Firstborn children tend to be a bit smarter on average.” She’s quick to add that, while this IQ difference shows up when researchers examine very large groups of people, it often disappears or flip-flops within individual families-meaning lots and lots of second- and third-borns have higher IQs than their older sibs. “There is one finding that has been replicated multiple times,” Rohrer says. Here are a few of the most interesting: First-borns may have higher IQs Parental investment and sibling conflict can also have an impact.Įven with all those things in mind, there’s still a lot of ways birth order may impact personality. While birth order is one of those things, she says a person’s environment, genes, and peer group play their parts. “There are so many things that influence development and personality,” Salmon explains. It just doesn’t matter as much, or in the ways most people assume. It’s not that birth order doesn’t matter at all. 'There is no real support for the idea that middles fare worse in life' How birth order influences your personality Some parenting blogs and books argue this imbalance of parental attention leaves middles feeling bitter and resentful, and can lead to later issues with self-esteem or assertiveness. ” Middles, meanwhile, never have the spotlight to themselves.

“The last-born gets the privilege of undivided attention when the older children have already grown up. Why would they feel this way? “The first-born gets the privilege of undivided attention until the second child is born,” explains Julia Rohrer, a personality psychologist and research fellow with Germany’s Max Planck Institute. If you’re not familiar with middle child syndrome, it’s the popular notion that middle-borns feel excluded or neglected compared to their older and younger siblings.

What do all these characters of television shows past have in common? They’re all middle children, and some may argue that at times, they all showed telltale sign of middle child syndrome.

Middle child