Family Therapy & Sibling Position

This pioneering study analyzes the effect of birth order and birth spacing on such factors as friendship, marriage and career success. First- children are generally taken to be leaders and most responsible. The second child is ordinarily the more flexible and compromising. And in a three child- family the youngest is often the most creative and rebellious. My brief remarks do not of course do justice to the complexity of Toman's study. Clearly birth- order is not the single factor, and often not the decisive one in shaping a personality. But Toman gives evidence that it is an important factor which taken into consideration with many others helps shape the person.