Birth order and personality: Evidence from a representative sample of Chinese

Abstract

Birth order differences in personality have been studied for almost a hundred years. However, most studies have been conducted in Western cultural contexts, while few studies have addressed the associations between birth order and personality in East Asian cultural contexts. In this study, we examined how birth order influences the Big Five personality traits using a representative Chinese sample ( N = 14,148). Both between- and within-family designs were used to examine the associations between birth order and the Big Five personality traits. The results indicated that the impacts of birth order on the Big Five personality traits were not statistically significant and were negligible. We conclude that birth order has no lasting impact on the Big Five personality traits in the Chinese cultural context.