Genes, upbringing and education play a role in future career success. We learn further how the family, especially brothers and sisters, shapes our personality.
According to scientists, the first-born are more likely than others to become leaders and achieve success at work. But this does not mean that our fraternal relations (or their absence) have no influence. Recent studies show that a lot depends on the age difference with brothers and sisters, the number of boys and girls in the family, the quality of relations between them and so on.
Quarrels are reflected in the formation of personality
Quarrels about who will go ahead in the car or get a kiss before bedtime, in fact, are reflected in the formation of personality. Battles and diplomacy in fraternal life can really help us arm ourselves with personal skills and attributes that will be useful directly in adulthood. People close in age to their brothers and sisters are generally more sociable. They may have been inclined to play and learn from each other in childhood.
Who is born to lead?
Thus, according to scientists, our brothers and sisters shape us. Today, the Internet is littered with various articles claiming that first-born are more likely to become leaders. So why not use the skills and instincts of the family boss as part of their working lives?
Nevertheless, some studies have debunked the notion that birth order significantly shapes our personality. According to some experts, this only to some extent determines certain character traits.
Birth order
There is another popular idea related to birth order, which is that the last children born in the family are generally more likely to take risks compared to other relatives. Other observations by experts prove that men who have older sisters are less competitive in adulthood. And, as practice shows, younger brothers in such families always remain on secondary roles and earn significantly less money compared to older sisters who manage to make a dizzying career and successfully assert themselves in life.
Good relations between brothers and sisters help
Thus, birth order can have a significant impact on a person’s success in adulthood. But this is only one aspect of the dynamics of personality development. It is also worth noting that, watching as two brothers and sisters play and fight together, argue and make friends, you can be sure that this will certainly leave its mark and lead to certain results in the future. Scientists argue that individual experience within the family hierarchy forms the person whom he subsequently becomes.
Personality stability
If a certain relationship is found in the relationship between brothers and sisters and similar behavior later in life, this indicates the stability of the person. For example, someone who cares about their relatives may just be a very sentimental person, so later they will certainly show the same qualities in other environments. Moreover, it is not at all necessary that any member of the family influenced the development of this quality, since it can be initially incorporated into DNA and arises regardless of external circumstances and the atmosphere in the house.
Psychological consequences
Besides these nuances, there is some evidence that kinship can have far-reaching psychological consequences. First of all, the climate between brothers and sisters is decisive: they can either provoke or protect against mental health problems, depending on whether there is warmth between relatives or, on the contrary, a conflict is brewing.
The benefits of family ties
Being emotionally stable and socially qualified is an advantage that is valued by many employers and often determines career growth. And this factor is primarily affected by relations with brothers and sisters. The gender of our relatives can also be important for our future careers, as one study showed that men with older sisters, as already noted, are less competitive. Although, again, it is important not to exaggerate the seriousness of this aspect, since this observation is associated with most cases, but practice also shows that there are exceptions.
Another specific factor, which may be more relevant than the order of birth, is the presence of a brother or sister close in age. A recent study showed that people who were closer in age to their older brother tended to be more sociable and less neurotic - apparently because they had to compete on a level playing field for the attention of their parents and therefore they were prone to learn from each other.
Another study found that brothers and sisters who played a game together as a child also received an early understanding of the emotions of those around them. It is also worth remembering that the brother-sister relationship does not exist in a vacuum - they tend to stabilize if the children are brought up in a more organized home environment with parents who are happy together. In other words, there are many factors - yes, your relationship with your brother or sister could seriously affect your own development, but in turn, the dynamics of becoming a person could be further shaped by a wider home environment, of which parents are a part.
It is interesting to note that there is a conclusion by scientists that, contrary to popular belief, the latter children are not entrepreneurial and are afraid to take risks compared to their older relatives.
The power of one
Being emotionally stable, empathic, and socially qualified are obvious advantages in many professions (as well as being an extrovert in areas such as sales, teaching or journalism). In this context, research suggests that having a sibling with you can provide you with an ideal training ground for developing many good qualities.
Another recent study found evidence that children from non-large families are less friendly and distrustful. But they turn out to be creative natures and may well compete in the framework of a successful career, since parents invest much more resources in their development than in the case of the opposite situation.
Thus, recent studies show that the presence or absence of sisters and brothers in any case affects our career successes.