Book Review: Born to Rebel

Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics, and Creative Lives
by Frank J. Sulloway
Copyright 1996
ISBN: 0-679-44232-4

In this book Sulloway proposes that birth rank is the major determining factor in an individual's openness to new ideas, theories, and experiences. To test this theory he used statistical methods to analyze biographical data from 3890 people who had recorded opinions on controversial social or scientific issues in the last 500 years. Among the issues he looked at were the Protestant Reformation, the French Revolution, and Darwin's Theory of Evolution.

In general, Sulloway's theory is that the earlier a person's birth rank is, the more likely they are to be conservative; while the later their birth rank, the more likely they are to rebel against the status quo. He also points out that this conservative versus rebellious isn't necessarily against the standards of society but rather the standards within the family. A first born will attempt to support (or even exaggerate) the theories and values that they were taught as a child/young adult, where a later born will be more likely to support new ideas. Sulloway also looks at how factors like sibling spacing, gender, personal temperament, and amount of conflict with parents interact with birth order to affect the basic inclinations.

I found this book and theory to be absolutely fascinating, and will be doing another post later this evening about how it seems to explain parts of my own life. Overall it was easy to follow the theories, although the statistics got a little dense from time to time.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

I didn't add much to my To Read List, as most of Sulloway's resources seem to have been journals & magazines.

Book Review: Born to Rebel

Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics, and Creative Lives
by Frank J. Sulloway
Copyright 1996
ISBN: 0-679-44232-4

In this book Sulloway proposes that birth rank is the major determining factor in an individual's openness to new ideas, theories, and experiences. To test this theory he used statistical methods to analyze biographical data from 3890 people who had recorded opinions on controversial social or scientific issues in the last 500 years. Among the issues he looked at were the Protestant Reformation, the French Revolution, and Darwin's Theory of Evolution.

In general, Sulloway's theory is that the earlier a person's birth rank is, the more likely they are to be conservative; while the later their birth rank, the more likely they are to rebel against the status quo. He also points out that this conservative versus rebellious isn't necessarily against the standards of society but rather the standards within the family. A first born will attempt to support (or even exaggerate) the theories and values that they were taught as a child/young adult, where a later born will be more likely to support new ideas. Sulloway also looks at how factors like sibling spacing, gender, personal temperament, and amount of conflict with parents interact with birth order to affect the basic inclinations.

I found this book and theory to be absolutely fascinating, and will be doing another post later this evening about how it seems to explain parts of my own life. Overall it was easy to follow the theories, although the statistics got a little dense from time to time.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

I didn't add much to my To Read List, as most of Sulloway's resources seem to have been journals & magazines.

Personal follow-up to Born to Rebel

I reviewed the book in this post.

As promised, here are some of the highlights of the theory and how they seem to apply to me:

• Firstborns identify with parents and authority.  As a child I definitely identified with both of my parents, and as a teen and adult I was(am) treated as a peer by both parents, especially my father.


• Relative to their younger siblings, firstborns are more assertive, socially dominant, ambitious, jealous of their status, and defensive.  This one doesn't feel as if it applies as much to me (although my brothers might disagree), but does relate to one of the later points.


• A person with a "conforming" personality may espouse liberal attitudes that have been learned from parents or other authority figures.  I seem to have taken my parents middle-of-the-road liberal views and gone a few steps further.  My parents (both firstborns) seem to have taken their parents slightly liberal views, and gone a few steps past that.


• Firstborns are more "antagonistic" than laterborns.  Again, not sure it applies to me, but it relates to a later point.


• Firstborns of both sexes emerge as the "alpha males" of their sibling system.  I don't know if I could be called alpha, but my personality is in many ways more typical of males than of females.


• Within families, the first two siblings manifested the greatest disparities, followed by the second and third.  Differences were significantly smaller for nonadjacent siblings.  True for my family.  Personality wise, I would say that I am most like Bobby (#3) and least like KC (#2).


• If one sibling identified strongly with one parent, the adjacent sibling identified with the other parent.  This was particularly pronounced for the first sibling pair.  Very true in my family.  I identified with Dad (sometimes to the disadvantage of my relationship with Mom), and KC identified with Mom (sometimes to the disadvantage of his relationship with Dad).

Everything above that is bold is more or less a direct quote from the book.  There are also points that I'm having trouble finding again, but seem significant:

• A shy firstborn will in many ways act more like a laterborn. 
  


• An extroverted laterborn will in some ways act more like a firstborn.
  


• A laterborn who is the first of their gender will have some firstborn characteristics.


• Laterborns who are extremely close in age to their next older sibling will show firstborn characteristics.

These points all go some way to explain why my brother KC is the functional firstborn in our family.  I was painfully shy as a child, while KC has always been extremely outgoing.  He and I are barely a year apart in age (13.5 months to be precise), and he is the oldest boy in the family.

A very interesting, thought provoking book.

Personal follow-up to Born to Rebel

I reviewed the book in this post.

As promised, here are some of the highlights of the theory and how they seem to apply to me:

• Firstborns identify with parents and authority.  As a child I definitely identified with both of my parents, and as a teen and adult I was(am) treated as a peer by both parents, especially my father.


• Relative to their younger siblings, firstborns are more assertive, socially dominant, ambitious, jealous of their status, and defensive.  This one doesn't feel as if it applies as much to me (although my brothers might disagree), but does relate to one of the later points.


• A person with a "conforming" personality may espouse liberal attitudes that have been learned from parents or other authority figures.  I seem to have taken my parents middle-of-the-road liberal views and gone a few steps further.  My parents (both firstborns) seem to have taken their parents slightly liberal views, and gone a few steps past that.


• Firstborns are more "antagonistic" than laterborns.  Again, not sure it applies to me, but it relates to a later point.


• Firstborns of both sexes emerge as the "alpha males" of their sibling system.  I don't know if I could be called alpha, but my personality is in many ways more typical of males than of females.


• Within families, the first two siblings manifested the greatest disparities, followed by the second and third.  Differences were significantly smaller for nonadjacent siblings.  True for my family.  Personality wise, I would say that I am most like Bobby (#3) and least like KC (#2).


• If one sibling identified strongly with one parent, the adjacent sibling identified with the other parent.  This was particularly pronounced for the first sibling pair.  Very true in my family.  I identified with Dad (sometimes to the disadvantage of my relationship with Mom), and KC identified with Mom (sometimes to the disadvantage of his relationship with Dad).

Everything above that is bold is more or less a direct quote from the book.  There are also points that I'm having trouble finding again, but seem significant:

• A shy firstborn will in many ways act more like a laterborn. 
  


• An extroverted laterborn will in some ways act more like a firstborn.
  


• A laterborn who is the first of their gender will have some firstborn characteristics.


• Laterborns who are extremely close in age to their next older sibling will show firstborn characteristics.

These points all go some way to explain why my brother KC is the functional firstborn in our family.  I was painfully shy as a child, while KC has always been extremely outgoing.  He and I are barely a year apart in age (13.5 months to be precise), and he is the oldest boy in the family.

A very interesting, thought provoking book.