Senior is not better: scientists have determined that the first children in the family not smarter than the rest

For decades psychologists have investigated the phenomenon of the firstborn. Many believed that children born first in the family to have better mental abilities and talents than the subsequent siblings. Recently, German researchers have determined that this statement is not true.

Find out what determines a person's ability and what is in the child's account gets the most talent out of our material.

Birth order does not affect personality is confirmed by the results of a new study.

Scientists have for many years argued whether it was true that the firstborn gets all the best. This debate originated in the early 1920's with the advent of the theory of psychotherapist Alfred Adler. He argued that the older children — the most successful, medium — independent, and healthy, and younger — friendly.

The status of the child depending on his birth order interests the public until now. Everyone is looking for the roots of their successes or failures at the beginning, namely in the order of birth.New studies have shown that this theory in most cases is not confirmed. Scientists of the Berlin Institute of human development them.Max Planck analyzed the biographies of 84 explorers and 103 of the revolutionaries to find out if these innovators have older brothers and sisters.Biologist and author of the theory of human species evolution Charles Darwin was the fifth of six children in the family.

Experts considered modern sources. They interviewed 1507 of the Germans, who have brothers and sisters, and also used information about 11 000 families taken during the period from 1984 to 2017. Scientists have found the relationship: the firstborn was not always the most successful.

In this project there are, however, a lot of white spots. First, the results cannot be applied to the world, because most included in the study data on affluent Western families. Secondly, there are those who were the only child in the family.