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Certain personality traits are often attributed to oldest, middle and youngest children. But a new study found that birth order itself had no effect on character, though it may slightly affect intelligence.
人们往往认为，某些性格特征是专属于排行老大、排在中间或家里最小的孩子的。然而一个新研究发现，出生顺序与性格无关，但可能对智力有些许影响。
Researchers analyzed three large ongoing collections of data including more than 20,000 people: a British study that follows the lives of people who were born in one particular week in 1958, a German study of private households started in 1984 and a continuing study of Americans born between 1980 and 1984.
研究人员分析了来自2万多人的三大组持续收集数据，其来源包括一份英国研究。该研究追踪了1958年某一星期出生的人的生活状况。还有在1984年开始、关于普通家庭的一份德国研究，和关于在1980至1984年间出生的美国人的一个持续研究。
They searched for differences in extroversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, self-reported intellect, IQ, imagination and openness to experience. They analyzed families with sisters and brothers, large and small age gaps and different numbers of siblings. But no matter how they spliced the data, they could find no association of birth order with any personality characteristic.
研究人员调查了在外向性、情绪稳定性、随和性、责任心、自我报告式理解力、智力、想象力和对不同经历的开放性方面的差异。他们分析了有不同的兄弟姐妹搭配、年龄差距和手足人数的家庭。但无论怎么拼接数据，他们都看不到出生顺序和性格特征之间的任何联系。
The study, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, did find evidence that older children have a slight advantage in IQ scores, but the difference was apparent only in a large sample, with little significance for any individual.
在《美国国家科学院院刊》(Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)上刊登的该项研究，确实发现证据表明年龄较大的儿童有轻微的智商优势，但差异只有在大样本才明显，对个人来说意义不大。
The lead author, Julia M. Rohrer, a graduate student at the University of Leipzig, said that birth order can have an effect — if your older brother bullied you, for example.
主要作者、莱比锡大学(University of Leipzig)的研究生朱莉娅·M·罗勒(Julia M. Rohrer)说，出生顺序就可能会有影响，比如你的哥哥可能会欺负你。
“But these effects are highly idiosyncratic,” she said. “There is no such thing as a typical older, middle or younger sibling. It’s important to stop believing that you are the way you are because of birth order.”
“但这些影响不具普遍性，”她说。“没有哪些性格特质专属于某个兄弟姐妹排行。重要的是，不要相信你之所以如此是因为出生顺序的关系。”
