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There's all kinds of stereotypes about what your position in your family says about you.
關于孩子家庭地位的思維定式各種各樣，
Oldest kids are the most responsible, the ones in the middle are rebels and since I'm the youngest,
老大責任感最強，老二比較叛逆，老幺因為年紀最小，
I must be spoiled.
所以備受寵溺。
And sorry only children, according to society you're selfish.
人們普遍認為孩子比較自私，這點我很抱歉。
It's called birth order theory.
這被稱為出生順序理論。
And it might sound like an appealing way to explain why your older brother is so overbearing and competitive,
那么用其解釋為什么哥哥有責任感好勝，
or why your younger sister always has to get what she wants.
或者為什么妹妹總是要得到自己想要的就比較貼切了。
But even though psychologists have used birth order theory to explain personality traits for decades,
幾十年來，盡管心理學家一直用出生順序來解釋性格特征
recent studies are finding that it doesn't actually seem to matter where you are in your family.
但最近研究發現，性格特征似乎和出生順序無關。
The theory dates way back to 1908, the early days of psychology,
該理論可以追溯至1908年，由奧地利心理學家阿爾弗雷德·阿德勒提出，
when it was proposed by Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler, a buddy of famous psychoanalysts Freud and Jung.
當時心理學還處于初起階段，阿德勒是著名精神分析學家弗洛伊德和榮格的好友。
All three of them agreed that experiences a person had as a kid could have big impacts on their personality as an adult.
他們三人一致認為，小時候的經歷可能會對孩子成年后的性格產生重大影響。
Adler took it one step further and argue that
阿德勒進一步論證了這一點
a child's position in their family would have a big impact on their development
孩子在家庭中的地位對他們的發展產生很大影響，
because each kid would experience a different psychological environment.
因為每個孩子都會經歷不同的心理環境。
In his writings he theorized that
阿德勒在其著作里提出：
the firstborn child starts out as the spoiled only child
老大一開始備受疼愛
and is basically dethroned when the next sibling comes along after getting bumped,
但隨著下一個孩子的出生，這種情況就改變了，
the oldest child ends up overbearing and neurotic since they feel responsible for looking after their younger siblings.
老大最后變得有責任感和神經質，因為他們覺得照顧弟弟妹妹是自己的責任。
Middle born children on the other hand, they're likely to feel overlooked and become the rebels of the family.
另一方面，老二可能有被忽視的感覺，變得叛逆起來。
And the youngest children might be babied by their parents,
老幺可能會備受父母寵愛，
so according to Adler they typically end up the most spoiled.
所以根據阿德勒的說法，老幺通常會被寵壞。
Adler never used any scientific research to justify his theory
阿德勒的這一理論從未經過任何科學研究論證
but he used it as a therapeutic tool when working with his clients anyway.
但無論如何，他把它當作一種治療工具來處理與客戶的關系。
As the idea became more popular, psychologists realize that
隨著該想法的普及，心理學家們意識到
they should probably do some actual research to find out if birth order theory was actually true.
他們應該做一些實際的研究來論證出生順序理論是否真的成立。
Personality is a complex thing to try and quantify and it can change over time,
性格在試驗和量化起來頗為復雜，它會隨著時間改變，
but scientists have figured out a way to sort of measure personality using what's known as the five factor model
但科學家們已經找到了一種方法，他們可以用所謂的“五因素模型”
or just the Big Five.
或者“五大特征”來衡量性格。
It's not so much a theory of personality as it is a way to categorize different traits on sliding scales.
與其說它是一種理論，不如說它是用滑動量表來標識不同特征的方法。
People can take a test to see where they fall on the scales of five traits;
人們可以測試，看看他們屬于五種特征的哪一種；
openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
開放性、認真、外向、隨和、神經質。
Based on a handful of early studies, some psychologists are pretty convinced that
根據一些早期研究，一些心理學家對此深信不疑
you can connect birth order to specific big five traits.
你可以將出生順序和五大特征聯系起來。
Like oldest children are more conscientious and neurotic
比如老大更加盡責和神經質
while youngest children are more open to new experiences.
老幺更樂于接受新體驗。
And this approach is really appealing because it sounds totally plausible right?
這種方法很棒因為它聽起來很有道理，對吧?
Like I have an older brother, he's pretty neurotic.
就像我的哥哥，他很神經質。
But those earlier studies have a lot of flaws and the more recent research with bigger better design studies,
但是早期研究還有很多不足，最近展開的研究盡管規模更大，設計更好，
hasn't found much of a connection between birth order and Big Five personality traits.
但還沒有找到出生順序和五大性格特征之間的聯系。
One of the problems with those smaller studies was that
這些小型研究的問題之一是
they often depended on one sibling self-reporting their personalities and those of their siblings, like what I just did.
它是基于一個孩子對自己以及兄弟姐妹性格的描述，就像我剛才做的那樣。
So if the researchers were interviewing an oldest child for example,
例如，如果研究人員調查一個年齡稍大的孩子，
the subject was more likely to report that they were more responsible,
受試者聲稱自己的責任感更強，
while their free-spirited little brother was more open.
而無拘無束的弟弟性格奔放一些的可能性更大。
But the difference between the way someone sees themselves, and how they see someone else,
但是人們看待自己和看待他人的方式是有差別的，
can really affect the result of the survey.
這會影響調查結果。
New studies had other flaws too,
新展開的研究也存在其它缺陷，
for instance they mostly looked at the differences between siblings within the same family
例如，他們的關注點在于同一家庭中兄弟姐妹間的差異
and they interviewed everybody around the same time,
他們一時間采訪了每個人，
which meant that the people born first were always older than the siblings they were being compared to.
首先出生的人總是比兄弟姐妹的年齡大。
So if the researchers found that firstborns tended to be more responsible was that because they were born first
所以如果研究人員發現第一胎更負責任是因為他們先出生
or because people just tend to get more responsible as they get older.
或者是因為隨著年齡的增長，他們會變得更有責任感。
So even though some of those early studies did seem to find a link between birth order and personality,
所以盡管一些早期研究似乎確實發現了出生順序和性格之間存在聯系，
their flaws meant that the results weren't super reliable.
而因為研究本身的缺陷，研究結果并不可靠。
Now more recently, researchers have been using much bigger data sets to
最近，研究人員利用更大的數據集來
analyze differences in large groups of kids from multiple Western countries.
分析來自西方許多國家孩子們身上的差異。
And it turns out that once you start comparing traits across families and looking at more subjects,
事實證明，一旦開始比較各個家庭孩子的性格特征，比較的對象更多時
the effects tend to go away.
這種效應往往會消失。
In two huge studies published in 2015, scientists were able to compare tons of different kids across lots of different families.
2015年發表的兩項大型研究中，科學家能夠比較不同家庭中不同的孩子。
One of the studies looked at almost 400,000 US high school students,
其中一項研究調查了近40萬名美國高中生，
and the other included over 20,000 students from the US, UK, and Germany.
另一組包括來自美國、英國和德國的2萬多名學生。
The one difference they found, and if you are an older sibling I expect you to hold this over your younger siblings,
他們發現其中一個區別是，如果你是哥哥姐姐，我希望你能照顧弟弟妹妹，
was a small change in intellect, which is considered one of the sub traits of openness in the big five.
這是智力上的一個微小變化，被認為是五大性格特征之一——開放性。
Siblings born first tend to have a very slightly higher IQ than siblings born later.
最先出生的兄弟姐妹往往比晚出生的兄弟姐妹智商略高。
We're talking like a couple of points.
我們像是談了幾個問題。
It could come from firstborn kids getting a little bit more direct attention from their parents at an early age.
可能是因為初生的孩子在很小的時候就得到了父母更多的關注。
But as we talked about before here on Scishow Psych, IQ is just a way to measure learning ability,
但是正如我們之前講過的，智商只是一種衡量學習能力的方法，
and that's only one part of the complex concept of intelligence.
它只是智力復雜概念的一部分，
And it can be affected by lots of different things like how motivated you are to do well on the test.
會受到很多不同因素的影響，比如考試的積極性。
And other studies looking at things at the data haven't found an affect of birth order on IQ at all.
通過觀察數據沒有發現出生順序對智商的影響。
Other than that, these gigantic studies found no significant effect of birth order on any of the other big five traits.
除此之外，這些大規模研究還發現出生順序對另外五大性格特征沒有太大的影響。
So most psychologists treat birth order theory with a healthy amount of skepticism these days,
現在大多數心理學家都對出生順序理論持懷疑態度，
although it hasn't been totally disregarded.
盡管人們對該理論還抱有一些相信
Birth order might be an appealing way to explain differences in the behavior of siblings,
用出生順序來解釋兄弟姐妹的行為可能很有說服力，
but when you look across large groups of families, the effects just aren't there.
但當你觀察更多的家庭時，你會發現這些效應并不存在。
You might know individual people who fit the stereotype of an oldest sibling who's more responsible,
你可能認識一些人，他們符合老大更加負責
or a youngest who seems spoiled, but there are also plenty of responsible youngest children
或者老幺備受寵愛的思維定式，但也存在老幺負責
or oldest children who act like total brats.
或者老大像個乳臭未干的小孩的現象。
Over time and across populations those traits balance out.
隨著時間的推移，人口的增長，這些特征會趨于平衡。
So birth order theory doesn't actually explain why your middle sister ran off to start a rock band,
所以出生順序理論并不能很好地解釋為什么你的姐姐加入一個搖滾樂隊，
that's just because she's awesome.
那只是因為她太棒了。
Thanks for watching this episode of Scishow Psych brought to you by our patrons on patreon.
感謝您收看本期節目，感謝patron為我們的節目提供贊助
If you want to support us, you can go to patreon.com/scishow,
如果您想支持我們的節目，可以登陸patreon.com/scishow，
there's a bunch of cool stuff there, also it's how we make this stuff.
這里有很多很酷的視頻節目，還有節目花絮。
And if you want to learn more about how these weird brains of ours work,
如果你想了解我們這些奇怪的大腦是如何工作的，
you can go to youtube.com/scishowpsych and subscribe.
可以登陸youtube.com/scishowpsych訂閱我們的節目哦。
