Birth Order and Political Behavior: Clearing the Underbrush

Abstract

Birth order has been implicated in a wide variety of human behaviors. One aspect of this is the contention that those who are first born differ in important respects politically from later born people. Actual findings from empirical research are surveyed to see the extent to which birth order affects both mass and elite political behavior. The meta-analysis suggests no clear pattern of findings supportive of the posited birth order-politics linkage; furthermore, the bulk of the studies that do indicate some relationship are methodologically flawed. It appears that further, more refined research is necessary to demonstrate that the linkage exists.