How Does Birth Order Affect Your Personality?

Who are you? When you are asked this question, what considerations do you take into account? Likely, you look at your personality traits: Maybe you’re a strong leader; perhaps "compassionate" is a term that best describes you; or maybe you’re energetic and upbeat.

Who we are as adults depends at least partly on how we were brought up as children. In many cases, the characteristics we identify within ourselves were entrenched in us from a young age.

This is the argument that Dr. Ronald Richardson and Lois A. Richardson put forth in their book, Birth Order & You. Through careful analysis, the authors identify the following factors as significant in the formation of an individual’s personality from a young age:

(a) The order of birth, whether first child, second child, last child, etc.
(b) The sex of the child
(c) The number of years between the births of the siblings
(d) The sex of the siblings
(e) To a lesser degree, the birth order of the parents, particularly parent of the same sex as the child

It may seem at first like these factors would not affect you as much as, say, your genetic makeup or other such predispositions to an individual’s traits. However, when you were born in your family plays a significant role in how your family relates to you as well as how you relate to your family. It’s certainly true that your experiences with your immediate family accustom you to certain reactions and behaviors that impact how you relate to the outside world — and the order in which you were brought into the family is a strong component of that.

Explaining the behavior and interactions of children and adults, parents and siblings, Birth Order & You helps readers to understand the possible source of their most predominant personality traits. It also offers tips for understanding your parents’ habits when you were a child and helps you to watch out for biases when parenting your own children.

About Regardless of your parental status, Birth Order & You by Dr. Ronald Richardson and Lois A. Richardson is great for anyone looking for insights into their own behavior and the behavior of loved ones in relation to their birth order.

The book is available in Self-Counsel Press' Web store.