Differences in personality traits based on birth order and sex configuration of siblings

„Može li naš redoslijed rođenja na bilo koji način biti povezan s našom ličnošću?“ pitanje je koje se provlači znanstvenim krugovima već dugi niz godina. Brojni istraživači koji su se temeljito bavili ovom temom došli su do zanimljivih, ali i izrazito nekonzistentnih rezultata. Pokušavajući otkriti razlog nejednoznačnih rezultata, cilj provedenog istraživanja bio je otići korak dalje i postaviti pitanje, je li naša ličnost povezana ne samo s redom rođenja već i sa spolom i spolom brata/sestre. Konkretno, ispitali su se efekti redoslijeda rođenja i spolne strukture parova braće i sestara na šest osobina ličnosti (skromnost/poštenje, emocionalnost, ekstraverzija, ugodnost, savjesnost i otvorenost iskustvu). U istraživanju je sudjelovalo 45 parova braće i sestara, a važno je naglasiti da je svaki član para ispunjavao upitnik ličnosti sam za sebe, što je manje korišten pristup u dosadašnjim istraživanjima koji su se bavili ovim problemom. Rezultati su pokazali da ne postoje razlike između ispitanika na dimenzijama: iskrenost-skromnost, ekstraverzija, savjesnost i otvorenost. Razlike su dobivene na dimenzijama emocionalnosti i ugodnosti. Što se tiče emocionalnosti, utvrđena je razlika između prvorođenog i kasnije rođenog djeteta jedino u slučaju kada se par sastojao od starije sestre i mlađeg brata, s tim da su sestre u prosjeku bile emocionalnije. Nadalje, razlika u ugodnosti s obzirom na redoslijed rođenja utvrđena je samo kada je spolna struktura para bila istospolna. Odnosno, u slučaju muške „dijade“ (stariji i mlađi brat), mlađe dijete je u prosjeku bilo ugodnije, a u slučaju ženske „dijade“ (starija i mlađa sestra), vrijedi obrnuto – ugodnije je bilo starije dijete.„Can our birth order be, in any way, linked to our personality?“ is a question that persists many years in the scientific community. A number of researchers, who have studied this issue, came up with interesting, but also extremely inconsistent results. Trying to discover the reason for this inconsistency, the aim of this study was to go one step further and ask ourselves if our personality is associated not only with our birth order, but also with our sex and sex of our brother/sister. In particular, we examined the effects of birth order and sex configuration of siblings in six personality traits (honesty/humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experiences). The study included 45 pairs of brothers and sisters, and it is important to point out that each member of the pair completed the questionnaire independently, which is less common approach in previous studies. The results shown that there were no differences between respondents on the dimensions: honesty-humility, extraversion, conscientiousness and openness to experience. However, differences were obtained on the dimension of emotionality and agreeableness. As for the emotionality, there were differences between first-born and later-born child only when the pair consisted of an older sister and a younger brother (sisters were more emotional). Furthermore, differences were obtained on the dimension of agreeableness only when the sex configuration of siblings was same-sex. In the case of male “dyad” (older and younger brother), the younger brother was, on average, more agreeable, and in the case of female “dyad” (older and younger sister), the older sister was more agreeable