No Evidence That Siblings' Gender Affects Personality Across Nine Countries
Survey
HILDA
Author(s)
Dudek, Thomas
Brenøe, Anne Ardila
Feld, Jan
Rohrer, Julia M
Date Issued
2022-08-23
Pages
09567976221094630
Journal
Psychological science
Keywords
Personality
siblings
gender
open materials
Abstract
Does growing up with a sister rather than a brother affect personality? In this article, we provide a comprehensive analysis of the effects of siblings' gender on adults' personality, using data from 85,887 people from 12 large representative surveys covering nine countries (United States, United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Australia, Mexico, China, and Indonesia). We investigated the personality traits of risk tolerance, trust, patience, locus of control, and the Big Five. We found no meaningful causal effects of the gender of the next younger sibling and no associations with the gender of the next older sibling. Given the high statistical power and consistent results in the overall sample and relevant subsamples, our results suggest that siblings' gender does not systematically affect personality.
URI (Link)
External resource (Link)
Type
Journal Articles
