Birth Order and Anxiety

Alfred Adler pioneered the concept that birth order determines a child’s personality. An interesting study done on birth order and anxiety in a dental setting, found that only children had higher clinical and situational anxiety, as well as more negative behaviour, compared to children with siblings. First-born children with siblings had an increased risk of developing negative behaviour and clinical anxiety. The study concluded that only children and laterborns have a greater risk of developing worse outcomes, at least in the dental setting (Aminabadi, Sohrabi et al. 2011). This study seems to suggest that birth order impacts a person’s propensity to anxiety. Similar results came from a study on depression in children aged 7 to 12 years-old. First-born children’s depression scores were significantly lower than middle-born and youngest children and first-borns showed less anxiety than later-borns. They also had higher levels of self-esteem (Gates, Lineberger et al. 1988). I work with disabled clients and as a first-born with a disability, I wonder if I ask my clients about their birth order, if I will find that disabled clients who are later-borns will suffer more from their disability than those who, like me, are first-borns.