First Born

First Born:

• first-born children are more likely to attempt to win favours from their parents by identifying with them; Healy & Ellis, 2007

• as seen in the Big Five personality traits, are thought to occur in a pattern in which first-born individuals are more conscientious, extroverted, and possibly neurotic while also being less open and agreeable (Sulloway, 1995).

• Identifying more closely with parents and relying on authority when making decisions as in the normative style suggest that first-born individuals should be more likely to adopt this style (The normative style is defined by the reliance of those in authority when evaluating identity-related information,)

• Because of the suspected greater investment of parents in first-born individuals,

first-born individuals should have more identity capital. (represents individual differences in the orientation toward identity-relevant information)

Second Born/Middle child:

Third Born/Youngest:

• The openness associated with the informational style suggests that later-born individuals would be more likely to adopt the informational style. (The informational style is defined by the active engagement in processing identity-related information)

Variables:

• It is worth noting that resources can be material (e.g., money), cognitive (e.g., time spent training a child), or interpersonal (e.g., love, affection) and that parental investment can vary by birth order even if parents consciously attempt to be equitable (Hertwig, Nerissa Davis, & Sulloway, 2002).

• Some studies have suggested that moderating variables such as mother's age are of upmost importance (Rohde et al., 2003).

• Measuring birth order