Birth Order, Schooling, and Earnings, Essay Example

Many professionals claim that the birth order of an individual has a direct impact on his or her personality. Birth order has a direct impact on an individual’s experiences, as their distinguished relationship with their family member’s ties into a certain set of required behaviors and responsibilities. As a consequence, many people tend to typecast the only, first born, middle, and youngest child. This research will determine whether publications regarding birth order hold true for the pop star Brittany Spears, who is the oldest sister of two.

According to the article “Birth Order and Intellectual Development”, the intelligence of siblings will be impacted by the intelligence of both their parents and of each other (Zajonc et al., 1975). For example, intelligent parents are more likely to have intelligent children, and an intelligent oldest sibling is likely to perpetuate this love for knowledge to his or her younger brothers and sisters. It has also been reported that family size handicaps this effect. Thus, one could expect that Brittany Spears is more intelligent that her sister and that her intelligence is about that of her parents. While the public does not hear much of her academic skills, it is clear that Spears is intelligent regarding her career. Despite a variety of media outbursts, she still produces music. Her younger sister had a musical career for some time, but has not produced anything new in years. Thus, we can conclude that this report regarding birth order is true in the case of Brittany Spears.

A second article entitled “From birth to seven: the second report of the national child development study (1958 Cohort)” reports that birth order has an impact on the development of a child (Davie et al., 1972). It claims that later born children tend to be heavier than the first born because the age of the mother impacts the size of the baby. While it is difficult to determine the size of Brittany Spears and her sister at birth, it is clearly observable that Brittany Spears is currently thinner than her sister. This may have helped her maintain a positive image in her own mind, giving her the power to attempt to achieve fame and remain motivated. On the other hand, Spears’ sister may have felt threatened by her sister due to both her talent and body image, and believed that she should cease her music career because she would never be able to equal her sister. Therefore, body image has direct physiological consequences, which in turn, both directly and indirectly, influence the attitudes of individuals. Thus, even though this aspect of birth order resulted in a difference of physical traits, weight has a high impact on mental stability and other factors, and is an important consideration in the discussion of birth order.

A third article entitled “Birth Order, Schooling, and Earnings” explains the relationship between siblings in terms of their yearly salary (Behrman et al., 1986). Ultimately, older siblings tend to make more money. Many people postulate that this is due to increased responsibilities they held as a child, so they felt that it necessary to support both themselves from an early age in addition to accounting for the possibility that they make have to take care of their siblings after the death of their parents. In the case of Brittany Spears, it is clear that she earns more than her sister, as she is currently one of the top earning performers of our time.

A fourth article entitled “Birth order effects: not here, not now” claims that observations and studies that have been conducted concerning the impacts of birth order are biased and unreliable (Schooler, 1972). An interesting observation in addition to this article is that there have been few attempts to determine the link between birth order and characteristics since the 1970’s and 1980’s. Therefore, it seems likely that scientific consensus has since supported the claims listed in this article. A majority of the studies conducted as a part of this effort used information to determine the existence of long-term population trends. However, when confounding variables are removed in these relationships, these trends seem to disappear. Ultimately, therefore, effects that have been predicted concerning birth order deals most directly with the parents’ differential treatment of their children. While first born children are more likely to be given a greater amount of responsibilities, the personality traits that are developed as a consequence of this has to do more with their relationship with their family than their birth order. A younger sibling who is given the same responsibilities is expected to have the same traits. Therefore, even those this research has held true using the example of Brittany Spears, this is a dramatic example because her fame has likely had an influence on her characteristics as well. Thus, we cannot correctly determine the factors that have caused her behaviors, especially because we have not been studying her familial relationships since birth. It is therefore important to be wary of these psychological reports.

References

Behrman JR, Tubman P. (1986). Birth Order, Schooling, and Earnings. Journal of Labor Economics. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2534958?uid=3739832&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21104683891223

Davie R, Butler N, Goldstein H. (1972). From birth to seven: the second report of the national child development study.(1958 Cohort)). London Longmans, 198. Print.

Schooler C. (1972). Birth order effects: not here, not now. Psychological Bulletin, 78(3): 161-175. Print.

Zajonc RB, Markus GB. (1975). Birth order and intellectual development. APA PsycNet. Retrieved from http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/rev/82/1/74/