ABSTRACT
Birth-order research, when it has been critically reviewed, has been criticized for its failure to adequately control for intervening variables (Ernst & Angst, 1983) or take the “psychological position” of the child into account (Shulman & Mosak, 1988). Such inadequate control has been thought to lead to the mixed, sometimes inconsistent research results that we see in this body of literature. But how has more recent Adlerian-oriented birthorder research controlled for intervening variables (e.g., sex)? and what can we learn from this research that might guide our future research efforts in this area? This brief review addresses these two questions.
