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There's all kinds of stereotypes about what your position in your family says about you.
关于孩子家庭地位的思维定式各种各样，
Oldest kids are the most responsible, the ones in the middle are rebels and since I'm the youngest,
老大责任感最强，老二比较叛逆，老幺因为年纪最小，
I must be spoiled.
所以备受宠溺。
And sorry only children, according to society you're selfish.
人们普遍认为孩子比较自私，这点我很抱歉。
It's called birth order theory.
这被称为出生顺序理论。
And it might sound like an appealing way to explain why your older brother is so overbearing and competitive,
那么用其解释为什么哥哥有责任感好胜，
or why your younger sister always has to get what she wants.
或者为什么妹妹总是要得到自己想要的就比较贴切了。
But even though psychologists have used birth order theory to explain personality traits for decades,
几十年来，尽管心理学家一直用出生顺序来解释性格特征
recent studies are finding that it doesn't actually seem to matter where you are in your family.
但最近研究发现，性格特征似乎和出生顺序无关。
The theory dates way back to 1908, the early days of psychology,
该理论可以追溯至1908年，由奥地利心理学家阿尔弗雷德·阿德勒提出，
when it was proposed by Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler, a buddy of famous psychoanalysts Freud and Jung.
当时心理学还处于初起阶段，阿德勒是著名精神分析学家弗洛伊德和荣格的好友。
All three of them agreed that experiences a person had as a kid could have big impacts on their personality as an adult.
他们三人一致认为，小时候的经历可能会对孩子成年后的性格产生重大影响。
Adler took it one step further and argue that
阿德勒进一步论证了这一点
a child's position in their family would have a big impact on their development
孩子在家庭中的地位对他们的发展产生很大影响，
because each kid would experience a different psychological environment.
因为每个孩子都会经历不同的心理环境。
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
老大一开始备受疼爱
and is basically dethroned when the next sibling comes along after getting bumped,
但随着下一个孩子的出生，这种情况就改变了，
the oldest child ends up overbearing and neurotic since they feel responsible for looking after their younger siblings.
老大最后变得有责任感和神经质，因为他们觉得照顾弟弟妹妹是自己的责任。
Middle born children on the other hand, they're likely to feel overlooked and become the rebels of the family.
另一方面，老二可能有被忽视的感觉，变得叛逆起来。
And the youngest children might be babied by their parents,
老幺可能会备受父母宠爱，
so according to Adler they typically end up the most spoiled.
所以根据阿德勒的说法，老幺通常会被宠坏。
Adler never used any scientific research to justify his theory
阿德勒的这一理论从未经过任何科学研究论证
but he used it as a therapeutic tool when working with his clients anyway.
但无论如何，他把它当作一种治疗工具来处理与客户的关系。
As the idea became more popular, psychologists realize that
随着该想法的普及，心理学家们意识到
they should probably do some actual research to find out if birth order theory was actually true.
他们应该做一些实际的研究来论证出生顺序理论是否真的成立。
Personality is a complex thing to try and quantify and it can change over time,
性格在试验和量化起来颇为复杂，它会随着时间改变，
but scientists have figured out a way to sort of measure personality using what's known as the five factor model
但科学家们已经找到了一种方法，他们可以用所谓的“五因素模型”
or just the Big Five.
或者“五大特征”来衡量性格。
It's not so much a theory of personality as it is a way to categorize different traits on sliding scales.
与其说它是一种理论，不如说它是用滑动量表来标识不同特征的方法。
People can take a test to see where they fall on the scales of five traits;
人们可以测试，看看他们属于五种特征的哪一种；
openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
开放性、认真、外向、随和、神经质。
Based on a handful of early studies, some psychologists are pretty convinced that
根据一些早期研究，一些心理学家对此深信不疑
you can connect birth order to specific big five traits.
你可以将出生顺序和五大特征联系起来。
Like oldest children are more conscientious and neurotic
比如老大更加尽责和神经质
while youngest children are more open to new experiences.
老幺更乐于接受新体验。
And this approach is really appealing because it sounds totally plausible right?
这种方法很棒因为它听起来很有道理，对吧?
Like I have an older brother, he's pretty neurotic.
就像我的哥哥，他很神经质。
But those earlier studies have a lot of flaws and the more recent research with bigger better design studies,
但是早期研究还有很多不足，最近展开的研究尽管规模更大，设计更好，
hasn't found much of a connection between birth order and Big Five personality traits.
但还没有找到出生顺序和五大性格特征之间的联系。
One of the problems with those smaller studies was that
这些小型研究的问题之一是
they often depended on one sibling self-reporting their personalities and those of their siblings, like what I just did.
它是基于一个孩子对自己以及兄弟姐妹性格的描述，就像我刚才做的那样。
So if the researchers were interviewing an oldest child for example,
例如，如果研究人员调查一个年龄稍大的孩子，
the subject was more likely to report that they were more responsible,
受试者声称自己的责任感更强，
while their free-spirited little brother was more open.
而无拘无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,
但是人们看待自己和看待他人的方式是有差别的，
can really affect the result of the survey.
这会影响调查结果。
New studies had other flaws too,
新展开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，他们的关注点在于同一家庭中兄弟姐妹间的差异
and they interviewed everybody around the same time,
他们一时间采访了每个人，
which meant that the people born first were always older than the siblings they were being compared to.
首先出生的人总是比兄弟姐妹的年龄大。
So if the researchers found that firstborns tended to be more responsible was that because they were born first
所以如果研究人员发现第一胎更负责任是因为他们先出生
or because people just tend to get more responsible as they get older.
或者是因为随着年龄的增长，他们会变得更有责任感。
So even though some of those early studies did seem to find a link between birth order and personality,
所以尽管一些早期研究似乎确实发现了出生顺序和性格之间存在联系，
their flaws meant that the results weren't super reliable.
而因为研究本身的缺陷，研究结果并不可靠。
Now more recently, researchers have been using much bigger data sets to
最近，研究人员利用更大的数据集来
analyze differences in large groups of kids from multiple Western countries.
分析来自西方许多国家孩子们身上的差异。
And it turns out that once you start comparing traits across families and looking at more subjects,
事实证明，一旦开始比较各个家庭孩子的性格特征，比较的对象更多时
the effects tend to go away.
这种效应往往会消失。
In two huge studies published in 2015, scientists were able to compare tons of different kids across lots of different families.
2015年发表的两项大型研究中，科学家能够比较不同家庭中不同的孩子。
One of the studies looked at almost 400,000 US high school students,
其中一项研究调查了近40万名美国高中生，
and the other included over 20,000 students from the US, UK, and Germany.
另一组包括来自美国、英国和德国的2万多名学生。
The one difference they found, and if you are an older sibling I expect you to hold this over your younger siblings,
他们发现其中一个区别是，如果你是哥哥姐姐，我希望你能照顾弟弟妹妹，
was a small change in intellect, which is considered one of the sub traits of openness in the big five.
这是智力上的一个微小变化，被认为是五大性格特征之一——开放性。
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.
我们像是谈了几个问题。
It could come from firstborn kids getting a little bit more direct attention from their parents at an early age.
可能是因为初生的孩子在很小的时候就得到了父母更多的关注。
But as we talked about before here on Scishow Psych, IQ is just a way to measure learning ability,
但是正如我们之前讲过的，智商只是一种衡量学习能力的方法，
and that's only one part of the complex concept of intelligence.
它只是智力复杂概念的一部分，
And it can be affected by lots of different things like how motivated you are to do well on the test.
会受到很多不同因素的影响，比如考试的积极性。
And other studies looking at things at the data haven't found an affect of birth order on IQ at all.
通过观察数据没有发现出生顺序对智商的影响。
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，这些大规模研究还发现出生顺序对另外五大性格特征没有太大的影响。
So most psychologists treat birth order theory with a healthy amount of skepticism these days,
现在大多数心理学家都对出生顺序理论持怀疑态度，
although it hasn't been totally disregarded.
尽管人们对该理论还抱有一些相信
Birth order might be an appealing way to explain differences in the behavior of siblings,
用出生顺序来解释兄弟姐妹的行为可能很有说服力，
but when you look across large groups of families, the effects just aren't there.
但当你观察更多的家庭时，你会发现这些效应并不存在。
You might know individual people who fit the stereotype of an oldest sibling who's more responsible,
你可能认识一些人，他们符合老大更加负责
or a youngest who seems spoiled, but there are also plenty of responsible youngest children
或者老幺备受宠爱的思维定式，但也存在老幺负责
or oldest children who act like total brats.
或者老大像个乳臭未干的小孩的现象。
Over time and across populations those traits balance out.
随着时间的推移，人口的增长，这些特征会趋于平衡。
So birth order theory doesn't actually explain why your middle sister ran off to start a rock band,
所以出生顺序理论并不能很好地解释为什么你的姐姐加入一个摇滚乐队，
that's just because she's awesome.
那只是因为她太棒了。
Thanks for watching this episode of Scishow Psych brought to you by our patrons on patreon.
感谢您收看本期节目，感谢patron为我们的节目提供赞助
If you want to support us, you can go to patreon.com/scishow,
如果您想支持我们的节目，可以登陆patreon.com/scishow，
there's a bunch of cool stuff there, also it's how we make this stuff.
这里有很多很酷的视频节目，还有节目花絮。
And if you want to learn more about how these weird brains of ours work,
如果你想了解我们这些奇怪的大脑是如何工作的，
you can go to youtube.com/scishowpsych and subscribe.
可以登陆youtube.com/scishowpsych订阅我们的节目哦。
