Characteristics of the First Child, Essay Example

It is common knowledge that parents’ behavior influences the decisions of their children.  The question upon which Jokela’s recent study was based relates to the impact that a first-born child has on his or her parents’ desire or willingness to have subsequent children (Jokela, 2010).

Jokela’s study concluded that certain emotional and cognitive characteristics of a first-born child are indeed predictors of the likelihood that the child’s parents will welcome another visit by the stork within the next five years.  The study results cited three factors that lead new parents to put out the stork feeder again; high cognitive ability, high infant adaptability to novelty, and high childhood pro-social behavior.

Critical Review

The study itself freely describes its own strengths and weaknesses.  A thorough reading of the article validates the author’s assessments of these characteristics, although there are several factors that the author does not mention.

The most significant strength of the study is the sample size and timeframe.  The study started with over 18,000 families who had a first-born child over a one-year period.  Follow-up data was collected when the child was 9 months, 3 years, and 5 years old.  The families were then tracked over the next five years.  Participants who did not complete any one of the follow-ups were eliminated from the study.  The final results were based on the remaining 7,695 families – a statistically viable sample group.

The statistical data was thorough and compelling, and infant temperaments were measured objectively using a well known instrument.  The author did not include a formal literature review, but did cite nearly 100 references.  Ancillary variables were considered (such as the tendency of the study participants to be somewhat economically disadvantaged) but no significant correlation was made between these variables and the prime one.

The primary limitation of the study cited by the author was the fact that all the data was somewhat objective and subject to the parent’s interpretations of both their child’s behavior and their own self-reported feelings.  The author tended to mitigate this limitation by pointing out that a parent’s opinion about their child’s behavior and their interpretation of their own feelings was in essence, the point of the study to begin with.

One of the variables that the author did not address is the fact that the study was conducted entirely within England, Wales and Scotland.  Jokela did not even address the possibility that the results of the study may have been influenced by the culture or social norms of the specific national group within which the study was conducted.  If for example, the study had been conducted in a substance culture, the only characteristic of a child that might be important to a parent might be his or her health and ability to eventually work on the3 family farm.  Given this consideration, this study could not be cited ad being a universal truth.

Of the 14 factors of child development and temperament charted, four characteristics rose up as the highest indicators of a parent’s willingness to have more children.  They were; temperament, social behaviors, emotional disposition and cognitive abilities.  It is interesting that these characteristics are all socially based and tend to reflect the depth of interaction that the parent (as an adult) can have with the infant or child.  Parents who had children who were happy, intelligent and social, liked the idea of having a child, and were more likely to want another one.

In some ways, this study seems almost idiotic.  Given the hypothesis, “If you have a great experience with your first kid, you might want another one”, Homer Simpson would probably say “Well Duh.”  If one could look for a moment beyond the fact that the variable is a living child, it is just human nature that given a positive experience, a person is likely to want another like it.  If conversely, a given experience is unpleasant, one might tent to avoid other such experiences.  Some parts of human nature just don’t need studies to be valid.

References

(Jokela M 2010 Characteristics of the first child predict the parents’ probability of having another child)Jokela, M. (2010). Characteristics of the first child predict the parents’ probability of having another child. Developmental Psychology, 46(4), 915-926. doi:10.1037/a0019658