Selects: Is birth order important?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, Chuck here with this week Saturday Select. That's
when Josh and I curate specially selected episodes to rerun
that may be a few years old. They may be
oh heck, they may be ten years old, maybe even older.
You never know, because a lot of people don't know
these episodes even exist. So that's why we do this.
So anyway, this one's on birth order. It's called is

(00:24):
Birth Order Important? I believe this was originally a Chuck
idea to begin with. This is from April twenty three,
twenty nineteen, and I am just pretty obsessed with birth order,
and so that's why I picked it to begin with,
and that's why I'm picking it again right now.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
Charles Aby, Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there, and this
is Stuff If you Should Know. Jerry cast Jerry, were
you a uh what was your birth order? Oh, Jerry's
a middle child two of two or two of more.

(01:13):
So you're the baby.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
You don't know this?

Speaker 3 (01:16):
No? Did you? Sure?

Speaker 1 (01:18):
No? I've know Jerry for like thirteen years. Hey, So
have I, Well, not that long twelve years, so have I?
No no comment?

Speaker 3 (01:27):
What am I?

Speaker 1 (01:29):
I don't know? That's right, I know what I'm the baby,
you know that.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
Yeah, I didn't ask what you were. I know you
know what you are? What am I?

Speaker 1 (01:36):
This isn't quiz not You're not gonna just yeah, yeah,
I wasn't calling you out. Oh well I was calling
you out. You were in a humorous way, and I
called you out. It's hard not to look at this
stuff through your own lens though, of your own family.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
You know, are you changing the subject?

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Well, no, I'm getting on with it. Oh okay, because
as the youngest of three and all of us have
three distinct personalities, it's hard not to kind of like
think about birth order right and if that's a thing right,
And it may be and it may not be. Yeah,
depends on which scientist you're asking.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
I tend to think like, there's just no way it
doesn't have any effect.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Now there, I think it definitely has an effect. But
as we will see, it is one part of a
huge pie.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
Yes, that.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Indicates what kind of person and personality you might have. Well.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
Plus also it's devilishly tricky to analyze to study because
of how big that pie is. Yeah, there's so much
going on with your personality that to just pinpoint one thing,
even a big thing like that where you're born in
a family, but it's just tough to pin down. So

(02:51):
you're the youngest, right, good guess, Yes, I am. I
knew you were the youngest. I'm like, I wear that
on my sleeve.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
I feel like I kind of do too.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
Mmy, I guess in some ways, but like I was
reading this checklist for the youngest. Yeah, I'm like, yeah,
I guess. So let's let's let's do it.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Should we go over that that stuff first?

Speaker 3 (03:13):
Yeah? Totally all right.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
So this is like the sort of macro view of
how a lot of people think of birth order pop psychology.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
Yeah, so if you were born into a family, there's
basically four ways that you can be born in some
sort of order. You can be the first born, you
can be a middle child, or you can be the
last born. And then if you're a real outlier, Okay,
you're right, so there's five or triplet. Oh god, yeah,

(03:47):
get me started. Let's just say a multi okay, a multi,
or you can be an only child too, sure, and
all of them have distinct personalities, again according to pop psychology,
but also according to every person who's ever been born
into a family, especially and so with the firstborn. The
whole theory of basically birth order, where you're born into

(04:10):
the family unit that you're born into, and what effect
that has on your personality and how it develops, It
all seems to come down to this idea that you
are born into a family where there is a finite
resource called parental attention, and then that is a pie
that gets increasingly divided up into smaller and smaller pieces

(04:32):
the more and more children that are born, because your
parents can't possibly give five kids the same amount of
attention that they could give an only child. It's just
not possible. And so what dynamics are created in the
personality of the kids born into that family depending on
how many others are born and depending on where they
fall in that birth order. That's kind of the premise

(04:54):
of the whole thing. And over time people have said, well,
this is what the firstborn's like, this is what the
middles like, this is what.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
The yeah, and there were I mean a lot of
this are these are generalizations, but they are generalizations. Like
you said, that kind of everyone who's ever been in
a family can kind of say, yeah, that's kind of true, right.
You know, when you have an only or your first kid,
they this article references as that first sort of experiment.

(05:20):
You don't know what you're doing yet You're probably going
all in, depending on how lazy you are, how motivated
you are as a parent with this, you know, being
a super parent. And then if supposedly as you have
more children you get it's not only as your attention divided,
I think, but there's the notion that you also are like,

(05:41):
you know, I probably don't need to be as crazy
with number two and number three, leave them to their
own devices as a third kid. I'm not going to
get into too many depressing details of my family growing up,
but like by the time I was ten and eleven,
my parents had other things going on. Yeah, and I

(06:05):
wasn't fair with.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
Other kids on the side.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
Not exactly. I wasn't fair old by any means, but
I was. I did not have rules imposed on me
like my brother and sister did. I did not have.
I was allowed to go to Panama City for spring
break and they weren't. I was allowed to kind of
do my own thing, and I was trustworthy, so that
probably had a lot to do with it. Yeah, if
I would have been a real problem, they might have

(06:29):
clamped down a little more, or maybe not.

Speaker 3 (06:31):
And they probably wouldn't have necessarily clamped down like we
need to give Chuck way more attention and guidance than
we have been. They would have probably been.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
Like crime and punishment.

Speaker 3 (06:40):
They would have been like we're sending Chuck to rehab
or whatever, you know what I mean, Let rehab take
care of her, reform school or something like that. Because
once you get X number of kids in, you're just
so tired. Yeah, so tired. And you're older too. Sure,
like when you're chasing a little kid around in like
your forties or fifties, that's different than when you're chasing

(07:00):
a little kid around in your mid twenties.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
I can't imagine a world of difference.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
You know. So there's there's there's a lot of resources,
not just you know, parents' attention, but also their time,
intellectual attention that they'll give a kid, like and say
like hanging out, teaching the kid to read that kind
of stuff, and just attention in general, and also financial resources,
the family's resources in general, are a pie that must

(07:27):
be divided among.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
All the financial, emotional, all that stuff instructive. So generally speaking, firstborn's,
people say, tend to be very conscientious and structured and
reliable and achieve high achievers.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
Yeah, because their parents are focusing like a laser on them.
They know everything that kids got going on, maybe a
little too much, and the kid is responding to this
by basically becoming a perfectionist and really wanting to be
around their parents and.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
Their parents' friends.

Speaker 3 (08:03):
More mature, very much mature, because they're all of the
people are most of the people are hanging out with
are adults.

Speaker 1 (08:10):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (08:11):
Okay, so that's a firstborn typically, right, everybody knows it.
Don't try to deny it.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
Middles in general are people pleasing, which is so my brother.

Speaker 3 (08:23):
That's weird to me because when I think of middle children,
I think of jam Brady and Jan Brady was not
a people pleaser. She was just you know, a lump,
like a lump with a cloud over head.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
Poor Jan.

Speaker 3 (08:35):
But that's true, Like I would not characterize jam Brady
as a people pleaser, would you know? Like she was
going to burn something down eventually. If the Brady bunch
had stayed on the air long enough.

Speaker 1 (08:45):
Was also a blended family. So what was uh yeah,
who was the It was Bobby and then Peter was from.

Speaker 3 (08:51):
The lateral, I guess you'd call it was he was
he a people pleaser or just Jan more than Jan.
But blended families do confound things. We'll get into that
yet for.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
Sure, but people pleasing, somewhat rebellious, which is not my
brother at all, large social circle, not really my brother,
and a peacemaker, totally my brother. He's the best, He's
the best. And then the youngings, youngies young'in's like us,
most free spirited, fun loving, uncomplicated, manipulative. I've been called

(09:31):
some of these things severing degrees, self centered, attention seeking and.

Speaker 3 (09:35):
Outgoing check and check.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
But combined you and I and we're sort of like
the proto youngest uncomplicated.

Speaker 3 (09:43):
Though I'm like, I don't get that. I'm exquisitely complicated.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
I'm on the surface you wouldn't think it, but I'm
pretty complicated, sure, as we all know in this room.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
But that's the only one that I'm like that I question. Yeah,
all the rest of them are like, yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (09:59):
It's like the Chinese zodiac. You look at that menu
and you're like total dog.

Speaker 3 (10:03):
Yes, and movie guy pant sounds great right now?

Speaker 1 (10:07):
Only no siblings. You are what they call almost like
a super firstborn.

Speaker 3 (10:14):
So sounds scary.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
All the traits of a firstborn on steroids, very much perfectionists,
very much more mature for your age, conscientious, diligent, prone.

Speaker 3 (10:26):
To be leader, can leap over tall buildings.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
And then this is where it gets interesting, and this
sort of starts.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
To finally, everybody, this is where it starts to get interested.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
Well, this is where it gets in a little bit,
like how complicated it can get because there's so many
factors at play, Like what if you're in a blended family,
because that kind of throws it all out of whack. Yeah, dude, can.

Speaker 3 (10:50):
If you're born a firstborn and you your parents, your
parents get divorce and you go with your mom who
gets remarried to a dude who has.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
Brady Yes to a smashing cool architect.

Speaker 3 (11:03):
For sure, and he has a kid that's a little
older than you, Greg, Greg's the firstborn. You're not the
firstborn anymore. The best you can hope for is to
form some sort of confederacy or alliance with Greg to
rule the rest of the siblings. But you're not the
head honcho anymore. You're not in charge. That's a big deal.

(11:23):
I can't imagine many more traumatic experiences, especially when that
follows closely on the heels of your parents divorce or
the death of like your other parent. That's got to
be one of the most traumatic things a kid can
go through is to lose their identified perch in the
family order.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yeah, and that's we were talking about, like the firstborn,
like the baby of the family. If all of a
sudden there's a younger, no good, no, Like I remember
my parents for some reason talking about adopting a kid.
I can't remember how old I was. I must have
been about seven, and I remember breaking down and crying
and just being like, you can't do this, you cannot

(12:04):
bring it someone younger and cuter right than me. And
that happens blended family. All of a sudden, you have
be a younger or god forbid, a baby. Just forget
about it.

Speaker 3 (12:16):
I can't compete with that.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
You gotta kill that baby.

Speaker 3 (12:21):
Well, that's what happened too. When Brady Bunch started to
lose ratings. Apparently your family was losing ratings. So they
brought in cousin Oliver a new baby, and I don't
think Bobby was very happy about that either.

Speaker 1 (12:32):
No, but just think about jan it all makes a
little bit more sense. Like she was like, I'm the
middle child, and then they brought in three more and
she was like, I'm even more.

Speaker 3 (12:39):
Middle Yeah, you're deluded. The middle child is deluded. And
if you have multiple middle children, forget about it.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
That's right. However, here's the thing with blended families. They
say by about the age of five that a lot
of your personality is set. So if you're older than
five and all of a sudden your family is blended,
they say, it may not make that much of a difference.

Speaker 3 (13:01):
No, no, No, that's where it's trouble. If you're younger than
five and you your personality is a little more plastic.
If you were born a baby of the family and
suddenly you're a first born or you're not there, or
you're a middle kid, yeah, you'll adapt to that a
lot better than you would if you're like older and
you're you're more solid in your birth order.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
Yeah. I didn't mean not trouble. What I meant was like,
if you're like twelve years old and the family blending happens,
it's trouble, but it's not like your personality is like
all of a sudden, I'm the youngest or you know
what I mean, Like, you don't all of a sudden
swap to a different birth order personality, I don't think.

Speaker 3 (13:42):
Right, But if you're younger and it happens, you.

Speaker 1 (13:44):
Do right under the age of five, which.

Speaker 3 (13:47):
Goes to show that if this is a thing, and
we'll talk about whether it is or not soon. Yeah,
it has nothing to do with biology, has everything to
do with with nurture, not nature, because a kid can
adapt depending on when this happens, they can adapt to
a change in birth order if they're young enough. Yeah,
that means it has nothing to do with biology. It's

(14:07):
all the environment you're raised in, which is the most
boneheadedly obvious thing on the planet.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
And then before we take a break, there are also
gap children. Supposedly, if there's at least a five year
gap between births, then it just sort of resets.

Speaker 3 (14:23):
That was like me and my oldest sister. She was
thirteen years older than me, right, she was just like
this older, cool person, but not like an old, older sister,
not at all overbearing, like really like for me, I
guess a little bit, yeah, or like a second mom
kind of to an extent.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
Because that does happen too if there's a big gap
or a big family. Like I dated a girl in
New Jersey that had that was like six or seven
of them, and by the time she came around, she
was kind of fully being raised by her siblings.

Speaker 3 (14:55):
Right, right, So what happens when there's enough of a gap,
a new family birth order forms. So like if you
have an oldest and then there's multiple years, like say
ten years between your oldest and your middle and then
two years between your middle and your baby, the middle
and the baby are going to form a firstborn and
a last born type relationship.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
Yeah, and the last born is always going to be
the last born, yes, regardless of gap.

Speaker 3 (15:22):
But then twins, like you were saying, is one last
confounding thing. They twins or triplets multiples as you call them. Yeah,
I think so. They form their own family unit within
the family two with each other. And apparently no matter
where they're born, twins never act like middle kids. They

(15:42):
always act like the firstborn or the baby, but to
one another.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
Right, and I think they generally come together to kill
the parents.

Speaker 3 (15:50):
Basically, right, they hold hands, it's like an elevator of
blood washes around them.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
And then finally, with adoption, they say that depending on
when your child has adopted, the same kind of scenario
scenario happens as in like with gapped and blended.

Speaker 3 (16:06):
Families, Whereas, if the kid's young enough, he or she
will tailor their their their birth ordered to the family
that they're adopted into. But if they're older, there'll be trouble.

Speaker 1 (16:19):
All right, that's a good overview, I think.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
I think it was a great overview, Chuck. We're glowing
from it.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
We're gonna you do have that overview, glow. We're gonna
take a break, and we're gonna talk about science right after.

Speaker 3 (16:33):
This, all right, Chuck, as promised, we're going to talk

(16:56):
about science, because, like I said, this is so owe
headed and obvious that every single person who's ever been
born into a family, everybody knows the stuff. But as
far as science is concerned, this is not proven that
birth order effects as they're called, actually exist. That science
is saying, hold your cell, your role, everybody. We can't

(17:19):
actually prove that what everybody knows is actually true. Some
studies show that, yes, there is such a thing as
birth order effects. Other studies show that there is no
birth order effect whatsoever. And then some studies suggest that
if there are birth order effects, they're so small that
they are basically a blip on your personality. That all

(17:41):
the other factors that form your personality, things like the
socioeconomic status of the family you're born into, your racial background,
your gender, all the other stuff that is what really
forms your personality, not the order you're born into your family.
That's kind of science's position right now.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
Yeah, But what they all agree on is that it
is therapy.

Speaker 3 (18:05):
Cash cow right, that, yes, it's a good it's a
useful framework to approach psychotherapy from it.

Speaker 1 (18:13):
They all want to talk about it at high hourly rates.

Speaker 3 (18:17):
See. To me, I'm like, this is sure, this is
exactly what forms your personality. But I get science's position.
I respect it.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
So if we go back in time to the early
nineteen hundreds, it was a man named Alfred Adler. He
was a part of a He was a contemporary of Freud,
and this is when all these dudes were getting together
to talk about all this stuff. In this burgeoning science,
and they all thought they were so cool and important,
And he was one of the only ones among his

(18:47):
peers though at the time, that was talking about birth
order that early. And he went on to form what
we know is Atlarian psychology or individual psychology, and it's
based therapy based on how you perceive your own level
of power in your family, at your workplace.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
In the world at large in general, like your perceived power,
place of position, or status.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
Right. Yeah, And if he believed in birth order having
a significant influence on your personality, then that in turn
would influence how powerful you may or may not feel.

Speaker 3 (19:24):
Yeah, Because the Adler, if how you perceived your own
power not necessarily how powerful you were, but your own
perception of power was the driving force of like how
you interacted with the world your personality, birth order would
make total sense because birth order, as everybody knows, is
nothing but positions of superiority or inferiority. Yeah, And it's

(19:47):
as simple as that. Because when you're born and you're
a little kid, and you're born into a family with
an older sibling, they are a couple of steps ahead
of you because they've already been through a bunch of
stuff Yeah, so they're inherently superior to you. They can
also beat you up on a very basic level. They
can twist your arm behind your back until it feels
like it's going to break. And Maria, how many times
you say uncle, uncle? Uncle? They won't stop until they're satisfied.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
Or protect you, like my big brother did. That's great
from his friends that were jerks to me. Right, he
wouldn't stand for it.

Speaker 3 (20:17):
No, a couple of.

Speaker 1 (20:19):
We went at it too, you know, we were brothers.
But sure he never picked on me. No, you know why,
because you chuck and he's Scott.

Speaker 3 (20:27):
Right.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
In the eighties is when, I mean, there were always
studies starting since Adler and freud'stein, but in the nineteen
eighties is when it really blew up thanks to the
Big Five in cocaine, the Big Five personality trait view
of things, and that's when things in the eighties, that's
when everybody was just like eating the stuff up.

Speaker 3 (20:49):
Yeah, because so the Big Five personality inventory is we've
talked about it before, but basically it is a self
reported measure that is actually valid. It actually works, like
you can say this person is highly neurotic, or this
person is extroverted or well three others that I can't
bring to mind right now. But these things are also

(21:11):
kind of broken into subcategories, like these are big umbrella
terms have more specific subcategories. But it's actually valid, Like
somebody who fills this survey out, it's going to be
an accurate assessment of their personality. So if you have
somebody's personality, that's huge, Right, you can say, all right,
if this person's neurotic, they're highly neurotic. Let's see what

(21:32):
birth order they are. Oh, they're a middle child. Let's
compare them to other middle children who filled out this
personality survey scored high on neurosis, And all of a sudden,
we can show if you're a middle child, you're a
far likelier to be highly neurotic under the Big five
personality inventory. Then a firstborn is right, boom bam, you

(21:53):
just proved that birth order effects exist? Or did you?

Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah, They're like we can put people further into a
box and label them. Sure, or did you? Because that
is sort of the paradox that arrive that we arrive at,
which is you pointed to it a little bit earlier.
There are so many, so many influences that go into
what makes you you that it's hard to look at

(22:21):
birth order as a mere small part of that. Yeah,
so so like you can't account you can account for
some of these and studying it, right, you know, there's
a lot of studies over the years and they do
their best, but you can't account for all of them.

Speaker 3 (22:33):
Well, okay, so we'll go back to that example. So
you've you've just gone to your peers and said, look,
I have just proven that middle children are highly neurotic
compared to other children in birth orders. Right, yeah, then
you're shaking your own fists around your your shoulders in triumph.
And they said, well, wait a minute, Wait a minute,
did you control for socioeconomic background? And you go no,

(22:58):
I didn't. Well wait did you control for race?

Speaker 1 (23:00):
No?

Speaker 3 (23:01):
Did you control for gender?

Speaker 1 (23:03):
No?

Speaker 3 (23:03):
And so all of a sudden you realize there's all
these different independent variables out tons in this case would
be confounding variables that might actually be the thing influencing it.
It might be the fact that they are women born
into families of a low ceoeconomic state that is driving neuroses.

(23:27):
That that's actually the thing that is driving it rather
than birth order. It has nothing to do with being
a middle child. It's just a fluke, a coincidence. And
like you said, there's so many confounding variables and so
many things that make our personalities who we are. That
some people who are like birth order effects do not exist.
Basically say that any birth order study that shows that

(23:47):
they do exist has some confounding variable that's the actual
hidden thing that's driving it that you can't possibly control
for everything to make a perfect, perfectly designed experiment for birthwork.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yeah, Like when you start to think about, like if
you were just to sit there and sort of jot
down things as non scientists, just regular schmos like us,
and just jot down a list of what other factors
might be at play, we could probably come up with
a list of one hundred things between.

Speaker 3 (24:15):
Us let's start now.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
But that would like if I was studying the stuff
and I started to make that list, I would just
walk away and go into another line of study. Sure,
I would be like, dude, I just you know where
your parents married, where they divorce, When did they get divorced?

Speaker 3 (24:29):
Did you like hot dogs?

Speaker 1 (24:30):
You live with mom or dad? How far apart did
they live? What could do? Were you suburban? Were you Urbana?
Where did you live in an excurb Did you grow
up in the woods? Did you start work at twelve?
For you like old timing, I started to work at twelve.
I guess I did too. I had a paper route. Yeah,
I was a bus boy.

Speaker 3 (24:47):
Oh nice? Oh wait was that where the guy put
his foot into the Yeah, brothers do what a criminal?

Speaker 1 (24:56):
I told you that's a title Max. Now that restaurant,
but not too long ago. Yeah, go JJ's barbecue title Max.
Now they're putting their foot on titles, just stomping on them.

Speaker 3 (25:08):
Yeah, but they got your money, your money, your real money.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
They're never gonna sponsor us. Now. Another few things that
can confound these studies are things and and Ed helped
us put this research together, things like demographic shifts. So
he gave a great example of like the baby boom,
if there's a big population bulge that also coincides with
a lot of other stuff. And the example he uses

(25:35):
prevalence of cigarette smoking. There may be a false correlation
there between being a first born and smoking, whereas if
you were second born twelve years later. I guess that
would fall outside that range though of gap.

Speaker 3 (25:49):
Child maybe, but that's even more confounding. The point's still valid,
sure that, Like, there's just way more firstborns who smoke
than second borns. But that's because those spoking was more
prevalent when there were a bunch of kids born who
were all of the same cohort and all firstborns. Right,
that's just one of the ways this thing can be confounded.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
Yeah, well, this one really speaks to me, which is
labeled as growth. When a birth order effect does appear,
it is strongest when they subject is with their siblings.

Speaker 3 (26:20):
Yeah, when you're a family or union, its back into
It is.

Speaker 1 (26:23):
So funny how that happens. Yeah, I see myself do it.
Like good example, I turned forty eight a couple of
weeks ago. My family, my sister and her husband happened
to be in town. Didn't come for that, but we
were texting and I was like, hey, let's all you know,
this is great, let's all go out to dinner. She's like, oh,
I didn't want to. I just figured you wouldn't want

(26:45):
to spend your birthday with your friend. You'd want to
spend your birthday with your friends and not your family.
And I saw Michelle when she got in town, and
she said the same thing in person, and I was like, dude,
I'm forty eight. Yeah, it's like I'm not twenty two
year old chuck, I know some burnout like I used
to be. And she just sort of laughed. But that's
a perfect example of how like, no matter what happens
in my life, I will always be the baby. Yeah,

(27:07):
and she will probably feel like she has to look
out for me, which is a nice feeling. It is
I see Emily fall into patterns with her family. Well,
she is a She's an interesting case because she was
an only and then has a half brother and a
half sister. Her dad. Yeah, her dad went and had

(27:29):
a son with another woman, and then her mom got
married to her father in law, Steve, who already had
a daughter. So it's this sort of a weird mix.
But I just mean in general, not even with siblings,
you know, just in how their family dynamic is. She's
a different person when we go over there, all of us.

Speaker 3 (27:49):
I think everybody is around their family so strange.

Speaker 1 (27:55):
So this is when it sort of started me down
the path of like what is personality? Is a personality trait?
Is it? This? Just is it repeated behaviors? Is it
a set of behaviors, Like is that personality?

Speaker 3 (28:12):
Are you asking me?

Speaker 1 (28:13):
Yeah? I mean I don't even know, Like what is personality?
We should do a show on that.

Speaker 3 (28:17):
Oh, we totally should. But from what I understand, just
kind of briefly put it, personality is the kind of
predictable way that you'll react to the world. Right. Is
it easy for somebody to press your buttons? Are you
laid back? Are you like could somebody? However, if somebody
were presented with this is going terribly If somebody represented

(28:38):
with a like an event in life, Okay, you could say,
Josh would probably respond to like that, Yeah, that's a personality.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
Right, But is that something inherent or is it birth
or order or no? Is it just a collection of
learned behavior?

Speaker 3 (28:54):
I think it's a collection of learned and reinforced behaviors too.
If you're told you're the baby the family all the time,
you're gonna act like the baby of the family. You're
gonna act self centered, you're gonna act manipulative. It's reinforced.
If you're told you you can do anything, you can
go out and do anything. You can literally walk through
walls because someone told you to. They reinforce that behavior.

(29:16):
But I think that's what personality is. And this is
just me talking. I also believe in birth order effects,
by the way, but I think that that is it's
learned and reinforced, which means it can be unlearned. You
can learn to be different.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Yeah. At that same birthday dinner, I picked up the
check for everyone, and there was a bit of a
not an argument letty's struggle. My mom and I were,
you know, kind of off to the side with the
people who work there doing the credit card battle, and
she wasn't super happy and I should have just let
her pay. But it's part of that thing, like I'm

(29:53):
the baby of the family, and I kind of just
finally told a sec Listen, Mom, it's like it's my
turn to pay nice. You know, I'm not the baby anymore.
Like quit writing me a check for one hundred dollars
on my birthday.

Speaker 3 (30:04):
Do you do you catch this?

Speaker 1 (30:07):
I mean I generally just put it in my kid's
bank account.

Speaker 3 (30:10):
Oh that's a good thing, you know. Yeah, we don't
catch the ones.

Speaker 1 (30:12):
Because I also don't want to take away the joy
that she gets from writing me that hundred dollars. Yes, sure,
that's not cool. No, it's like I don't need that
from her, but like that's what brings her joy.

Speaker 3 (30:20):
Yeah, giving you money, it's complicated. So let me teach
you a little trick. Oh okay, if you don't want
to get into that tussle, if you just wanted to
be done, sorry, it's too late. When you order, when
you hand the menu back to the server, just have
be holding your credit card with your thumb and give
them a look. It's universal, dude, They all know, and

(30:40):
they'll take it and be like, and you got to first.
Nobody else does that. They always wait and they pretend
to go to the bathroom, like after everybody's done. It
so obvious. You got to start before the food even comes,
before the drinks even come.

Speaker 1 (30:52):
You know what I did? What when we got to
the restaurant, the very first thing I did was go
up to the manager while everyone was being seated. I said, listen, dude,
my mom's going to try and pay, or one of
these other trumps in my family's going to try and pay.
He's like, I don't want any of them paying. It's
like twelve people. I picked the place. I picked a
nicer place. It's like I don't want to do that.

(31:14):
And I was like, so, just here's my credit card.
Please make sure that the server there's no battle.

Speaker 3 (31:19):
They didn't follow your orders.

Speaker 1 (31:21):
No, because my mom she tried to jump me later
on the side and didn't realize I had already jumped her.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
So it should have been done.

Speaker 1 (31:30):
I know. But then when we went over there, he
was like, listen, man, your mom is over here now,
like she's the mom. We generally side with the parents
on this stuff.

Speaker 3 (31:39):
What place was this?

Speaker 1 (31:40):
It was just a restaurant.

Speaker 3 (31:42):
I demand to know. I'm mad.

Speaker 1 (31:44):
I my move should have just trumped all moves because
it was No. I agree, and that's what I basically said.
And I was like, listen, man, I was like, there
are factors at play here that I don't want to
talk about. It's like, just please. And my mom got
a little mad, and then.

Speaker 3 (31:57):
I was I blame this manager. I think you should
expose them. Well, I'm glad it all worked out in
the end.

Speaker 1 (32:04):
Man, Should we take a break.

Speaker 3 (32:07):
I thought we were right now.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
No, all right, we'll be back right for this.

Speaker 3 (32:32):
All right, we're back, Chuck. Yes, And like we said,
we showed science is kind of like we're not quite
sure about the birth order effect. That hasn't kept like
a whole cottage like field of psychology from continuing since
the eighties basically non stop. Like if you go look
at birth order effects, there's it's very rare you're going
to run into anything that says like this is all

(32:54):
b Yes. Most of it's like, yeah, this is true.
Everybody knows it. There have been some like dominent people
in favor of like like let's say, yes, there is
such thing as birth effects. And there was one guy
in particular who made a big splash in nineteen ninety
six with a book called Born to Rebel. Yeah sol Away, Yeah,

(33:15):
Frank Soloway, Frank J. Soloway, if you want to be
fancy about it. And he got a MacArthur Genius grant
in nineteen eighty four to kind of study this and
write about it, and he did. He wrote a book
called Born to Rebel. It was about birth order and
the whole premise of the book was he looked at
scientific revolutions throughout the ages. It's pretty interesting identified which

(33:37):
scientists were on which side of it, either in support
of this revolutionary thinking or opposed to it, meaning that
they were in favor of keeping the status quo, and
then determined what birth order they had. And he found
after this study, which is really it was a big study.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
Yeah, they did.

Speaker 3 (33:56):
It was a pretty a lot of legwork and a
lot of research, he determined that first borns are much
more likely to support the status quo, whereas second borns
or later borns he calls them, are much more likely
to support revolutionary thinking.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
Yeah, and just one example, as far as he used Darwinism,
he said, later borns between eighteen fifty nine and eighteen
seventy five were four point six times more likely than
firstborns to support Darwinism.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
Thinking yeah, yeah, so yeah, And that was one of
many examples that I think there were one hundred and
twenty one historical events with sixty five hundred individuals either
supporting or opposing them. So it was a big, big
work for sure.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
Yeah. And one of his I mean he put some
reasoning behind it too. He was like, if you're a
later born, you might have a hard time competing with
your older who might have a tighter bond with the parents. Maybe,
and so that sort of symbolically forces you as to
be almost an out within your own family. So you
may be more prone to join up with an outsider opinion.

Speaker 3 (35:06):
Right to go, look outside of the family union and
all of the values and the ideas that it holds,
to make your own mark in order to get attention
or support or whatever from your parents. Whereas if you're
a first born, you just got the easiest thing to
do is to just fall in line with your parents
and hence support the status quo. It makes sense, but

(35:27):
Born to Rebel was torn apart by some scientists. Sure
it's like this is just pure pop psychology tripe. I
think that's an unfair characterization of it. Like, the guy
worked for basically twenty something years on this stuff, and
it was a very robust study. One of the pitfalls
that he seemed to have run into, though, was he

(35:48):
was analyzing historical figures, which is really sticky stuff. Yeah,
you can't analyze people even from Afar, even if they're
content prairie let alone, they've been dead for a couple
hundred years. To base it on that is kind of
is kind of difficult and tricky, But I just want

(36:09):
to say he worked really hard on it.

Speaker 1 (36:12):
Another part plucked from his research I thought was pretty
interesting was the idea that part of this less rebellious
nature of a firstborn might be due to the long
standing but now sort of antiquated practice of primogeniture, which is,
the firstborn gets the inheritance, so they're more likely, just

(36:32):
through thousands of years of this, more inclined to like
not ruffle the feathers of the parents, right.

Speaker 3 (36:39):
And then the later borns who are like, I've got
basically zero chance of inheriting the family titles in a state,
I'll just go do my own thing. I don't have
to fall in line. That makes sense as well.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
And the other interesting thing with that is another factor
was the removal of a child from a family. He's
found that a later born who was removed from the
family and reared by relative will end up behaving like
a typical firstborn. And again I'm assuming if that's under
the age of like five.

Speaker 3 (37:06):
But I wonder so I'm wondering if that just is
supported by other research, or if all of the parenting
magazine articles that mention that whole, you know, the personality
is tailored, is really just citing that work. Because that's
one of the big problems with pop psychology in general
is it's self reinforcing. One person says one thing and

(37:27):
it gets picked up by a bunch of people and
they're all pointing to the same thing. But since so
many of them are pointing, there's so many of them
out there doing the pointing, right, it seems like it's
a very robust and like a widespread body of work,
when really it was just one study that said one
thing that everybody's citing.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
Well, yeah, like in his case, he likes to cite
this Norwegian study. It found a difference of two point
three IQ points between first and second and born children,
sample size of two hundred and forty one thousand subjects.

Speaker 3 (37:57):
That's big.

Speaker 1 (37:57):
It is big, But then you know ed sort of
brings up a good point, like okay, maybe, but like
is a two point three first of all IQ tests
are problematic, they're bond for like a lot of reasons,
possibly bunk. But even if they're not, is a two
point three IQ point difference even meaningful? Yeah enough to
be like, well look two points.

Speaker 3 (38:19):
So no, it's not meaningful in that like you know,
that doesn't that's not going to lead to any like
closed doors or open doors or anything. It's just such
a narrow difference but if that's like an average, and
it's it is found across you know, firstborns and later borns,
like like in a very large population like that it is,

(38:40):
it does make you wonder, like what would that come from?
It does raise more questions. Yeah, you know what I mean. So, Yeah,
it's an insignificant difference as far as like actual intelligence goes,
but it does suggest that there's something weird going on
there that does have to do with birth order.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
Well, I guess that brings us to this really interesting
thing that I had never heard of before. Oh, y,
had you heard of this fraternal birth order effect? Which
is basically the idea and a lot of studies have
backed this up. Meta analysis of tons of studies have
backed this up. The idea is that if you have

(39:17):
multiple boys in your family, each successive boy that's born
and this is it's just boys, has a higher chance
of being gay.

Speaker 3 (39:32):
Right.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
I didn't think And when I first saw that, I
was like, that can't be real, right, And then I
did a lot more poking around. I was like, Wow,
it is real. The statistics sort of bear it out.

Speaker 3 (39:41):
Yeah. If there's a big disagreement about whether actual just
regular birth order effects exist. This one is much more
supported by the data. Yeah, this the fraternal birth order effect,
and so much so that there was a sexologist, which
if that were my feel is study, I'd be like,
call me sexologists, Josh, please, I can't find his name

(40:03):
is Ray something he said, and I'm not sure what
he was basing this on, but he said that there
is an increase of thirty three percent in likelihood that
you will be gay with each additional older brother you have.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
Now, so that means if you're born into a family
and you're the youngest of four brothers.

Speaker 3 (40:24):
I did this math.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
What does that mean? Because I know these people family.

Speaker 3 (40:29):
Zero percent chance, I guess that that you are going
to be hetero, that you were one hundred percent chance
going to be gay?

Speaker 1 (40:38):
Right, Well, how many it could be one hundred and
sixty percent? Right, it just keeps going right, Yeah, I
think that can't be right.

Speaker 3 (40:44):
Eventually you become so gay you pop out the other
side and you're straight because you have like ten brothers.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
Well, I did see that meta analysis of multiple multiple
studies indicated that between fifteen and twenty nine percent of
gay males owe their sexual orientation to this effect.

Speaker 3 (41:04):
Supposedly Okay, so so, and we should say there are
some studies that have not found this. There was a
big one that had it was like a survey of
British young men that surveyed like eleven thousand of them
or whatever and did not find this. But so many
studies have found it that science is like this, this
actually might be a thing, and we're not quite sure
what it is. And at first they explained it that

(41:28):
the more boys there are, the less social pressure there
are for you to be like hetero and and responsible
for carrying on the family line right right, right, like
after two three brothers who are gonna, you know, carry
on the family line, go go crazy, go do what
you want, And that that was the idea behind why

(41:50):
it became likelier that you would be gay if you
had more older brothers. There's a couple of things with that.
It kind of suggests that like being gay or not
as a choice, are being straight or not as a
choice rather than something biological, right whatever, That has kind
of gone out the window with another really surprising finding
that has to do with handedness that really undermines that

(42:12):
whole idea.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
Yeah, so this is so just mind blowing and interesting.
So the increase in probability of a boy becoming gay
is only only if that boy is right handed. Right
handed yep, So if you're left handed. Among left handed men,
there was no statistical difference in the incidence of homosexuality,

(42:34):
even if you've got a thousand brothers.

Speaker 3 (42:36):
And the weird thing about that is that they've found
if you are taking birth order out of the equation,
if you are left handed, there is a slightly higher
incidence of being gay, just period, yes, for being left handed,
and that's with men and women apparently, So the idea
that not only does it not make you more likely

(42:58):
to be gay in as far as fraternal birth order
is concerned, it actually negates the effects of fraternal birth order.
It negates it. It shows that that social pressure from
brothers doesn't have anything to do with it, right, because
a right handed or a left handed kid is not
going to be under any more or less social pressure
from older brothers to be straight. Right, that makes zero

(43:21):
sense whatsoever. And that would also suggest it's handedness, that
it has something to do with genetics too.

Speaker 1 (43:25):
If you're ambidextriousity bisexual, I guess so, where's that study
that makes sense? So I did a little more digging
in this, but I don't understand it at all. But
more recently, as in just a couple of years ago,
they think they found an actual physiological biological explanation for that. Oh,

(43:48):
did you understand that.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
I don't know if they found it or if somebody
made it up, and everybody's.

Speaker 1 (43:52):
Like, no, I read a bunch of papers that said that,
you know, they think this may be it, okay, but
I didn't get it.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
So what they think is that a mom. When a
mom carries a boy, her body has a reaction to
the male male proteins, the stuff that makes him a
male creates an allergic reaction of sorts in the mom,
and the mom produces antibodies. The first time the mom's

(44:23):
bodies totally caught off guard, has basically no effects whatsoever
on the boy's development as a boy. As more and
more boys are born, and just state in that same
poor mom, the antibodies get better and better at recognizing
these proteins and can actually get to the point where
they affect the expression of these proteins, and so what

(44:46):
makes the boy straight from the basis of these proteins
is actually affected and they develop differently starting in the
womb because the mom has developed antibodies to basically maleness,
which is the most mind boggling, amazing idea I've ever heard.

Speaker 1 (45:03):
That summary was so much better than the scientific paper
summaries that I read today. Good John, thank you you
should do that.

Speaker 3 (45:10):
Thank I do for a living. I just did.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
Well, that's a good point. I thought this was interesting too.
I mean, we've kind of gone over most of these
birth order theories I think in general, but this one
I don't think we super touched on, and I think
it's really interesting. The confluence theory. So this is sort
of like resource solution of parents that we were talking about, Yeah,
like only so much emotional support or financial support to

(45:36):
go around, But this takes it down to the sibling level,
and it's sort of basically like if you were first born,
you are then have a degraded emotional environment and intellectual
environment once you get a younger. Yeah. So it's like
playing tennis against better or worse competition. If you're the

(45:57):
better tennis player, you're not going to play as good
against a lesser tennis player. And they're saying that that
kind of happens with firstborns. Because they have to spend
time with this dumb kid, this dumb baby.

Speaker 3 (46:08):
But the dumb baby gets a leg up exactly.

Speaker 1 (46:11):
That's when you play tennis against someone better than you. Eventually,
that's called the tutor effect. They surpassed that firstborn.

Speaker 3 (46:17):
The student becomes the mass. That's right, exactly, and your
skin turns to alabaster.

Speaker 1 (46:22):
Really interesting, says Sting said Sting. Well the Police, Oh okay,
Oh sure, I thought you were like a dream of
the Blue Turtle. Sting.

Speaker 3 (46:34):
No, I'm more of a nothing like the sun.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
Yes, synchronicity, that's good too. I'm still mad at them
for that reunion tour.

Speaker 3 (46:43):
Oh yeah, they really phoned it in. You said, just
phoned it in? Hey, I saw for some so I
just thought of the Police, and then Stuart Copeland, which
made me think of Less Claypool. Remember he's in that
band with Less Claypool and Trey Anastasio.

Speaker 1 (46:56):
Yeah, it's called kill Me.

Speaker 3 (46:59):
No, it's the three talented individuals. But then that made
me think of Less Claypool, who was in a documentary
I just saw on The Residents. Have you seen it?

Speaker 1 (47:08):
No? The Residents were the mystery band, right, that were
the big ping pong heads.

Speaker 3 (47:12):
Eyeballs, eyeballs right, still are a mystery band, still going
really Yeah, they're good, but it's good. It's like it's
an intellectual kind of like examination of their history and everything,
but it's really interesting. But Less Claypool's in it.

Speaker 1 (47:26):
Do you think when Less Claypool, fish guy what's his name?

Speaker 3 (47:30):
Tresso and Stuart Copeland.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
And Stuart Copan you think when they got together to
form that band, all they did was just sort of
work out who's solo is next. Probably it's like, I
want to do the bass solo first, and then we
can go right into the guitar solo and then the
drum solo and then the song's over.

Speaker 3 (47:48):
Hopefully the birth order of the three worked out so
that it all They were like, yes, this all makes
sense to me.

Speaker 1 (47:53):
Man, there's nothing better than old videos of Stuart Copeland
pitching fits.

Speaker 3 (47:57):
Oh Diddy, I always heard it was thing that was
a jerk to Stuart Copeland. Was Stuart Copeland's jerk?

Speaker 1 (48:02):
Well, Stuart Copeland was a hot head and Steven was
a could poke his buttons. Oh yeah, it's pretty fun.
There's Stuart pretty Opland. No, don't feel bad for Stuart Copeman.

Speaker 3 (48:12):
He might be. I think he might be the best
drummer I ever lived, everybody says Neil Pert. I don't know, man,
Stuart Copeland was pretty good.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
Oh yeah, and like crazy, uh, like doing his own thing.

Speaker 3 (48:23):
And he's from Macon. What yeah, Macon, Georgia, Macon, Georgia.

Speaker 1 (48:27):
Wow, I didn't know that.

Speaker 3 (48:31):
This concludes this episode of stuff you should know. If
you want know more about birth order, go talk to
your family. We don't care. Since I said that's time
for listener mail.

Speaker 1 (48:41):
Did you watch the Motley Crew movie yet on Netflix?

Speaker 3 (48:43):
No? No, I didn't know. It's out.

Speaker 1 (48:44):
Yeah, it's out.

Speaker 3 (48:45):
Okay. Is it good?

Speaker 1 (48:47):
Uh? No?

Speaker 3 (48:48):
Is it based on that book?

Speaker 1 (48:49):
It's not good, but it's great, you know what I mean?
Oh yeah, oh yeah, it's based on the book. Okay,
but it's so I mean, it feels like one of
those VH one Are you literally making a note? It's
sort of like when of those VH one movie music movies. Okay,
like the Jackson's one. It's it's it's.

Speaker 3 (49:05):
Good, Okay, I'll check it out, all right, who plays
Vince Neil?

Speaker 1 (49:11):
They're all, you know, the only one of the not
the only thing. There's a lot of distracting parts. But
the guy who plays Vince Neil and his hair looks
a lot like Garth, looks not like Dana Carvey is Garth,
So it's kind of hard to fully go there. The
guy who played Tommy Lee is pretty good?

Speaker 3 (49:30):
Was it Christian Navarro? No?

Speaker 1 (49:32):
Did he wants? He can't play Tommy Lee? He could.
Tommy Lee's like six'.

Speaker 3 (49:36):
Five that kid can play. Anybody, well, NO i. Agree all,
right it's time for listener, MAIL i, Said.

Speaker 1 (49:41):
Chuck the bar is more mc mars. Guy, okay all,
right here we.

Speaker 3 (49:44):
Go is that From is That? Dawkin, No Mick marsh's mot?

Speaker 1 (49:47):
Legruw who is?

Speaker 3 (49:48):
That he's a guitar?

Speaker 1 (49:49):
Player oh the Old?

Speaker 3 (49:52):
Creep, yeah, yeah SURE i know who you're talking. ABOUT
i GUESS i never knew his.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
Name by, creep he was a. Creep he was. Creepy,
sure that's WHAT i.

Speaker 3 (49:59):
Mean still is all?

Speaker 1 (50:00):
Right here we? Go this is From. Sam i'm just
gonna call this. Heartfelt it's always nice to hear. This,
hey guys probably could have sent this a million, times
but TONIGHT i really felt the need. To you were
with me WHEN i transitioned from high school to. College
you were there the night my dad died two years,
ago and now you're here As i'm in the process
of dealing with my girlfriend dumping me up to three.
Years you're always, there. Guys sure you hear this all the,

(50:23):
time BUT i want to tell you that some tough,
days on tough, days you really help keep me, sane
plain and.

Speaker 3 (50:29):
Simple help keep me sane and playing and.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
Simple not that we keep them playing and. SIMPLE i
read that.

Speaker 3 (50:37):
Wrong it's like eight shoots and. Leaves that's.

Speaker 1 (50:39):
RIGHT i have depression and anxiety and the podcast is
a huge help on nights like this when nothing seems
to help or it's. COMFORTING i can tell if things
get really, bad if even the podcast doesn't. Help you
guys have also been like role models for. Me so
this is all just to say thank you so much. Much,

(51:00):
guys who knows how much darker some spots of my
life have been without? You could say much, more BUT
i THINK i got the message. Across that is From,
sam and he, says, PS i am a he hymn
AND i spank this email on the.

Speaker 3 (51:13):
Bottom oh, good that's how we got.

Speaker 1 (51:15):
Here that's.

Speaker 3 (51:15):
Great nice. Work if you want to get in touch
with us Like sam. Did thank you very. Much, sam
by the, way that was very sweet of you to
tell us all that hope you're pulling.

Speaker 1 (51:24):
Through, yeah hang in, there.

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Man you can get in touch with us by going
to stuff Youshould know dot com and clicking on our social,
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Did don't forget to spank it on the bottom to
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