Oldest? You might be smartest too

[AliceInWonderland]

Oldest? You might be smartest too
Tutoring younger brothers and sisters may help enforce learning, study says

The Associated Press
Updated: 11:39 a.m. PT June 21, 2007

WASHINGTON - Boys at the top of the pecking order — either by birth or because their older siblings died — score higher on IQ tests than their younger brothers.

The question of whether firstborn and only children are really smarter than those who come along later has been hotly debated for more than a century.

Norwegian researchers now report that it isn’t a matter of being born first, but growing up the senior child, that seems to result in the higher IQ scores.

Petter Kristensen and Tor Bjerkedal report their findings in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.

It’s a matter of what they call social rank in the family — the highest scores were racked by the senior child — the first born or, if the first born had died in infancy, the next oldest.

Kristensen, of Norway’s National Institute of Occupational Health, and Bjerkedal, of the Norwegian Armed Forces Medical Services, studied the IQ test results of 241,310 Norwegian men drafted into the armed forces between 1967 and 1976. All were aged 18 or 19 at the time.

The average IQ of first-born men was 103.2, they found.

Second-born men averaged 101.2, but second-born men whose older sibling died in infancy scored 102.9.

And for third-borns, the average was 100.0. But if both older siblings died young, the third-born score rose to 102.6.


The findings provide “evidence that the relation between birth order and IQ score is dependent on the social rank in the family and not birth order as such,” they concluded.

It’s an issue that has perplexed experts since at least 1874, when Sir Francis Galton reported that men in prominent positions tend to be firstborns more often than would have been statistically expected.

Since then, several studies have confirmed higher intelligence scores for firstborns, while other analyses have questioned those findings and the methodology of those reports.

Frank J. Sulloway of the Institute for Personality and Social Research at the University of California, Berkeley, welcomed what he called the Norwegians’ “elegantly designed” analysis.

“These two researchers demonstrate that how study participants were raised, not how they were born, is what actually influences their IQs,” said Sulloway, who was not part of the research team.

The elder child pulls ahead, he said, perhaps as a result of learning gained through the process of tutoring younger brothers and sisters.

The older child benefits by having to organize and express its thoughts to tutor youngsters, he said, while the later born children may have no one to tutor.

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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OMG this is sooooooooooo true; my sister's not so bright

[MrsDark]

Ha! Knew it all along...

[Daphne]

I am the oldest, and I am definitely smarter than my sister and brother. That sounds terrible, but it's true.

[yanna]

Nice one! Well, my boyfriend is both the eldest boy in the family and Norwegian so he must be super smart (well, he is!). I’m the eldest and I think I’m kinda smarter than my bro. My dad and his older brother are an exception, though. My dad’s older brother is pretty dumb. It must be because he spent his time beating up my dad instead of tutoring him.

[Penny Lane]

Ya dont say....

Honestly, though.. sometimes I feel bad for my younger siblings because I did get better grades than they do when I was their age.

[AliceInWonderland]

^ yeah isnt that always how it is though; they're praised for other shit though i guess...and it kinda pissed me off when my sister would be congratulated for just passing her classes and I was pulling in A's and B's!
Also I busted my ass for the SATs like seriously hardcore, i took classes and even took them several times and never even took them! not even once!!

[Penny Lane]

My brother is actually in summer school right now because he failed math. Math is definitely not my forte, but my idea of struggling is a B.
I dont understand how my brothers can blow off school work.... one of them got in shit for never turning homework in for an entire semester. I wouldn't be able to do that... the anxiety alone would kill me.
But I understand what you mean when they get praised for just passing. It pisses me off because I killed myself for the past 8 years trying to be a good student and they slack off and get just as much notice as I did.
But.. thats just me.

[AliceInWonderland]

^ OMG! well you certainly have a lot of pressure on you dont you?! yeah I could never not turn in hmwk either! thats crazy talk!

[Pippin69]

Haha! The lowest grade I ever got was when my oldest brother was helping me in chemistry.

I wonder how much of it has to do with interest? I love to read, but was bored with math, my brother loves numbers and statistics, but hates to read.

I'm the youngest and I got the best grades in english and had no interest in math (I still got good grades though). While my oldest brother had no interested in english (still passed, but my math grades were higher) and got the best grades in math.

[Lily]

This is BS. I've known plenty of people who were the youngest of three, or the middle child, and they were the "smart" ones.

These studies are ridiculous.