Selects: Is birth order important?

In this episode of "Stuff You Should Know," Josh and Chuck delve into the intriguing topic of birth order and its potential impact on personality. They explore the widely held beliefs of pop psychology, which categorize individuals based on their birth order (firstborn, middle child, last born, only child) and attribute specific traits to each. They discuss the concept of parental attention as a finite resource that gets divided among children, shaping their personalities. While acknowledging the common generalizations associated with each birth order, they also discuss the complications that arise in blended families or when there are significant age gaps between siblings. They further explore scientific studies on birth order effects, including the Big Five personality traits, and discuss the challenges of isolating birth order as a definitive factor due to numerous confounding variables. The episode also touches on Frank Sulloway's "Born to Rebel" theory, which links birth order to revolutionary thinking, and the fraternal birth order effect, which suggests a correlation between having older brothers and the likelihood of being gay, particularly among right-handed men.