In addition to influencing the personality of the children, the rank occupied in the siblings would also have an impact on their intelligence. Several scientific studies support this. Between the eldest, the youngest and the youngest, who is the smartest child with the highest Intelligence Quotient (IQ)?
Elder, younger, youngest… In the collective imagination, we tend to think that each of the children of the siblings has a personality of their own. Thus, according to urban legend, it is rank in the familythe order in which the parents gave birth, which would define the main character traits of a little one. If many people adhere to this theory, another may well reopen the debate as to the best place to occupy in the family. Indeed, it would seem that the place occupied by the child within the siblings also has an impact on his intelligence… At least this is the finding established by several scientific studies. We explain to you.
According to them, the eldest would be smarter than the rest of the siblings. It is in particular by measuring the Intelligence Quotient of each child that the researchers have come to this conclusion: the first child in the family is in fact the one who the highest IQ. The researchers of theUniversity of Leipzig* even went so far as to quantify this difference: it would be 1.5 points difference from one child to another.
What are the factors that explain it?
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Parents are more involved in the education of the eldest
Logically, biology has nothing to do with the level of intelligence finally obtained, since if it were, all children would have the same IQ. As shown by another scientific study** conducted by researchers from theUniversity of Sydneythose are parental education factors which are responsible for these differences. Indeed, the parents do not give quite the same education to the first, to the second, or to the last-born of the siblings. Since he is the first, he is the one and only when he is born, the eldest gets full attention from his father and his mother: they show themselves a lot more available for his educationthey grant more time for homework only to subsequent children.
Besides the purely academic side, the excitement of this new parenthood pushes them to invest as much as possible : they are unconsciously more motivated to stimulate the child’s intellect through cultural and extra-curricular activities. They not only invest more timebut also more money to the intellectual development of the first brat. The more children are added, the more this time and this money must be divided equally between brothers and sisters. In a nutshell, when the family grows, parental attention is diluted and the IQ of subsequent children tends to decline.
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The eldest is smarter because he feels he has to be
But this “overinvestment” by parents can also nurture a state of mind in the elder who pushes him to seek excellence in education, and to improve his IQ in fine. Indeed, all the attention his parents gave him can turn into real pressure for the latter: it is possible that he finally perceived it as an “obligation” to perform. In this sense, the youngest is much more relaxed than his elders in terms of his performance and his academic success.
The intelligence of the first child is cultivated by his role as the family’s school tutor
Finally, the researchers also suggest that the elder can take on a role of school tutor for his brothers and sisters: he can help them with their homework, transmit their own knowledge to them. This has an impact on his intelligence: by doing so, he improves his own cognitive abilities. Effectively, in order to explain and transmit the knowledge that he himself has learned, the elder is “forced” to review his knowledge, to think about the best way to explain it, to structure it in an intelligible way so that his brothers and sisters understand it.
So, does the eldest of your own siblings confirm this scientific argument? Or is he the exception that proves the rule?
Open-minded and in love with life, Emilie likes to decipher the new phenomena that shape society and relationships today. Her passion for the human being motivates her to write…