Birth Order Role in Personality

                Birth Order is only one part of personality.  There are at least three other inputs: prenatal learning, values and experience. 

Every baby is born with personality that is developed in the womb.  How this aspect of personality develops can be checked out at http://www.birthpsychology.com/lifebefore/earlymem.html.  The summary conclusion at this site is, “Perhaps the biggest surprise is that life in the womb is extremely active and interactive and the womb is, in fact, a classroom.”   This personality with which a person is born appears to determine the general emotional mood of the person.

Birth Order is developed during the first year or two of life when the child discovers answers to three questions:  “Who am I, who are all these other people and what is going on here?”   The answers to these questions comprise the content of Birth Order. 

In answering the question of “Who am I?”, the First Born sees self as the abandoned one, the Second Born sees self as the inadequate one, the Third Born as the threatened one, the Fourth Born as the rejected one and the Only as the controlled one.  

In answering the question, “Who are those other people?”,  the First Born sees others as unloving, the Second Born sees others as competitors, the Third Born sees others as threats, the Fourth Born sees others as adversaries and the Only sees others as controllers. 

In deciding “what is going on here”, the First Born feels love going to others, the Second feels rejection of achievements, the Third sees conspiracy, the Fourth sees conflict and the Only feels pressure. 

Following the establishment of Birth Order the next input to personality is in values that are absorbed from the family making the child decide what is important in life.  These values interact with Birth Order to create behavior and whether the behavior is good or bad depends on the values the child has adopted.   Values are created as parents and other caretakers react to certain behaviors and ignore others.   The child learns to value behavior that results in attention, whether positive or negative.    

The fourth stage of personality development is life- long learning.   In this stage the person learns from experience what works and what does not.  This experience does not modify personality but rather challenges the person to get different results by doing the same things differently.  For instance, a person who is punished for crimes becomes more skillful at committing crimes to avoid punishment rather than becoming different.  A person who is rebuffed for being kind finds different ways to be kind rather than becoming unkind.  Personality is resilient, not easily changed.

Birth Order provides the organizing structure for personality.  As we understand Birth Order we are more able to determine the other facets of personality that enable us to make necessary changes.