Are the firstborns smarter than the youngest of the family? This is confirmed by the latest study carried out by a team of researchers from the University of Leipzig (Germany) and which puts an end to many years of debate : the order in which we are born determines our intelligence ; the first-born are the most intelligent and this value begins to decline until it reaches the youngest, with the lowest intellectual value of all the siblings. However, being born the first or the last in a family does not condition our personality. Statistically it only affects the intellect .
To reach this conclusion, the researchers examined three key databases from the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom that determined important study variables such as family size, origin, socioeconomic status, and age of the children. kids. After comparing the data, they discovered that the children had 1.5 points more IQ as they moved up towards the first-born sibling .
Why this variation in the intellect according to the order in which we are born? Scientists are not sure why they show higher intelligence but it could be due to certain conditions during pregnancy or perhaps environmental factors. But the truth is that there is no clear answer.
Another of the conclusions of the study has to do with the perception of oneself regarding their intellectual curiosity and is that, according to the study, the first-born were more inclined to affirm that they had a richer vocabulary and that they also had less difficulty understanding ideas abstract; that is, the firstborn were the ones who saw themselves the most intelligent and their scores on the intellect tests were also better .
The study has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
