Based in Brazil, Fernanda Ferreira is a science writer who covers a range of STEM (and occasionally non-STEM) topics, from textile conservation to vaccine stockpiles.
If you have siblings you’ve probably been told at one point or another that firstborns are bossy, the youngest is spoiled and the poor middle child is always neglected. People have been trying to figure out the effect of birth order on personality for over a hundred years and at times it feels that with each month a new study pops up either supporting or denying such an effect. The most recent paper to take a stab at this dispute used previously collected data from almost 20,000 American, British and German individuals. While the researchers from the University of Leipzig in Germany confirmed previous data that shows a slight decline in IQ from oldest to youngest, they found that birth order has no effect on personality.
