Birth Order Personality and the MBTI: Stereotypes and Statistics

With the plethora of personality-type tests out there we get the opportunity to publicly define ourselves in numerous ways. I (Kari) am a proud slytherclaw, INFJ, and an Enneagram Nine. I am also an only child, but you won’t find that anywhere on my social media. Instead, birth order seems to be the one theory we love to assign to other people rather than announce to the world where we fall in our familial units. “Hm. Typical only child. Their such a loner.” “Oh man, youngest kids are so lucky - my little sister got away with everything.” “He seems very insecure, I bet he’s a middle child.” So where did the birth order personality theory come from, anyway? Around the early 1900s, Alfred Adler, an Austrian psychiatrist, first hypothesized that birth order could have a lasting effect on a child’s personality. Later, fueled by several popular books published in the 90s and 00s, birth order types became a popular topic of discussion at watercoolers and in living rooms around the world. But do the theories about birth order really hold up or is it just another pop-psychology fad that won’t die? And if birth order personalities are accurate, how do they correlate up with the reigning Queen of all personality tests - the MBTI? Tune into this month’s podcast as we dig into the stereotypes of birth order personality and how they correlate with Myers-Briggs type (MBTI). Do first-born kids really all resemble Type A personalities like Alex P Keaton ? Do middle children just need a hug? Are youngest children really magical unicorns (Rebecca says, bwa ha ha, neigh, neigh, neigh). Calling All Introverts Are you an introvert who loves to talk about your MBTI type? As the hosts, we only represent about a quarter of the introvert MBTI types and we'd love to be able to include more diverse opinions! Join our "Hush" of Introverts Facebook Group and weigh in on upcoming show topics, polls, and more! Not into Facebook? No problem. Join our email list or send us a note at [email protected] Stuff We Talked About Does birth order affect a person’s personality? Born to learn or born to win? Birth Order Traits Birth Order INFJ Personality Birth Order Personality Study