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Birth order may not specifically affect your personality by the nature of your actual order of birth, for instance, if you are raised alone but are one of 10. BUT, I do believe that which order you are raised in your group of siblings can greatly affect how you behave. This seems to be a normal by-product of psychology and the influences that we have thrust upon us from our environment.

Oldest children have a tendancy to be more self-assertive and self-confident. This would make sense from the standpoint that they most likely have been in a situation to be "in charge" of their younger siblings at one point or the other and have also been expected to do more chores or take more responsibility. It only stands to reason that this would influence a person to having a more confident and assertive personality.

Middle children are generally going to be vying for attention since they are not the oldest and not the baby. This causes "middle child syndrome" characterized by frequent bids for attention and attempts to individualize themselves from the other children for a parent's favor.

Youngest children have a tendancy to be babied by the parents and can tend to become dependant on others as adults and more whiny. They can also tend to be more family oriented since they are used to relying on and being around other family members who take care of them and put them in the position of being coddled. This would create an environment in which a youngest child would continue to rely on others but also be very affectionate and trusting.

Only children will most likely have oldest and youngest traits in some form or another since they are expected to take care of themselves and engage with adults on a more frequent basis but can also be put in the position of being spoiled and not having to learn "sharing" techniques as a child.

These are the standard personality traits that emerge as dominant for birth order. Situations such as separation of siblings or extreme age differences can remove these tendancies since they are really traits inherited from environmental factors. We all are products of our environment with a bit of our own spin thrown in. I would say that these would fall along the 80/20 spectrum in "reared together" and "average birth age difference" studies. So this certainly would not apply to all people equally.

Learn more about this author, Rachel Carroll.
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