Date Approved

5-4-1999

Embargo Period

7-21-2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.A. in School Psychology

Department

Educational Services and Leadership

College

College of Education

Advisor

Klanderman, John

Committee Member 1

Dihoff, Roberta

Subject(s)

Birth order; Personality

Disciplines

Educational Psychology

Abstract

Alfred Adler pioneered birth order research having found that birth order had a great deal to do with how adults interact in the world and the development of personality traits. In an expansion of his theory, the relationship between birth order and personality was examined in this study. One hundred thirty undergraduate and graduate students, with ages ranging from eighteen to forty-six and different ethnic backgrounds were tested. They were group administered the BASIS-A Personality Inventory as well as a questionnaire which assessed their birth order. The BASIS-A is based on Alder's Individual Psychology and asked the participants to recollect childhood experiences and rate them on a Likert Scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. There were ninety-six females and thirty-four males and they were grouped into four categories: oldest (fifty-eight), middle (twenty-three), youngest (forty), and only child (nine). A Kendall's tau was used to analyze the data and out of ten different personality themes measured, one came out significant. Differences were found on the Liked by All scale correlational to birth order. This scale measured how much one found their place in the family by pleasing adults and winning their approval.

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