Dr Emma Farrell

So there's a lot of middle children out there.

And those middle children are often said to be the peacemakers.

So the people who can get on with anyone in any scenario.

But cracks really begin to form in this theory when you consider that the current US president, Donald Trump, is a middle child.

There's lots of well-known middle children, people like Oscar Wilde.

Alfred Adler himself, actually, was a middle child.

So we're beginning to see some weaknesses in this theory.

Well, I'm the youngest in my family, so of course I'm a little bit biased on that.

So while it is true that youngest children are often said to be a little bit spoiled and manipulative, we're also very charming.

We're also seen to be really good fun, risk takers, good humoured.

So there's a lot of good things associated with being the youngest child as well.

Well, only children, if you subscribe to this birth order theory, are said to have a choice.

They often tend to lean towards the characteristics that are associated with eldest children or the youngest children.

But that's a little bit more vague.

Well, I think it's probably a good time to come in and point out that there's actually very little evidence to support the idea that birth order has anything to do with shaping our personality into adulthood.

It's one of those theories that has really captured the public imagination.

But while we did some early studies and they kind of looked at some associations, they tended to be quite small and subject to bias.

But a couple of years ago, a really large study with almost 20,000 adults from the UK, the US and Germany, they asked them basically, they did ask them about their personality and about their birth order and found that birth order has no influence on personality into adulthood.

They did a couple of really interesting things in this study.

So they used a measure of personality called the Big Five, which many of your listeners will be familiar with.