Personality Correlates of Birth Weight and Family Birth Order
Abstract
In an attempt to better understand relationships between birth weight, birth order, and later psychological adjustment, three scales were administered to a sample of 192 undergraduate students (53 males, 139 females), including the Oxford Happiness Scale, the NEO-PI Big Five Personality Scale, and the Dispositional Resilience (Hardiness) Scale. Based upon reported birth weight estimates, the participants were assigned to one of four weight estimate groups: Group 1, less than 3 lbs.; Group 2, 3 lbs. 1 oz. to 5 lbs. 7 oz.; Group 3, 5 lbs. 8 oz. to 8 lbs. 12 oz. and Group 4, 8 lbs. 13 oz. and above. For birth order, participants were assigned to one of four birth order groups: Group 1, first born; Group 2, second born; Group 3, third born; Group 4, born fourth or later. Participants were also divided into groups based on the number of siblings they reported: Group 1, only child; Group 2, one sibling; Group 3, two siblings; Group 4, three or more siblings. SAS procedures were employed in order to conduct MANOVAs comparing birth weight estimate groups, birth order groups, and the number of siblings groups on the personality measures. Concerning birth weight, participants in Group 1 scored higher on openness than those in Groups 2 and 3. Birth weight Group 2 scored lower on conscientiousness and happiness than those in Group 3. Group 1 also scored lower on commitment than the Groups 3 and 4. For birth order, participants that were born fourth or later were significantly less conscientious, more neurotic, and scored lower on commitment than all of the birth order groups (first, second, and third born). The analysis on number of siblings revealed that there were significant predictive relationships between number of siblings and conscientiousness and commitment. Those with fewer siblings were more conscientious and scored higher on commitment than those with more siblings. The results show that the Big Five factors, Hardiness factors, and Happiness, can be influenced by birth weight, birth order, and the number of siblings.
Subject
Birth WeightBirth Order
Siblings
Number of Siblings
Family
Big Five
Big 5
Happiness
Hardiness
Personality
Citation
Patron, Sarah Rachelle (2017). Personality Correlates of Birth Weight and Family Birth Order. Undergraduate Research Scholars Program. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /164391.