Always felt like you got the brains in the family? Then you are probably onto something – at least if you are the eldest of your siblings.
New research carried out in a German University found that the first born in a family has a higher IQ than their younger siblings due to the level of attention they are bestowed in their early years.
Scientists carrying out the study discovered that parents tend to make a greater effort to encourage learning with their first child than they do when it comes to their second, third and fourth children. In other words, with your first born you have time to do all the stuff that you won’t have time for when baby #2,#3 and #4 arrives.
The German researchers found a difference of 1.5 IQ points between each sibling in a family after taking into account three national surveys which documented the IQ results of more than 20,000 people.
Lead researcher Dr Julia Rohrer said the following about the result: “One theory is that following children “dilute” the resources of their parents.”
Well, I think we can all agree that our brains do indeed get a little diluted with motherhood – and as more babies come along, no?
“While the firstborn gets full parental attention, at least for some months or years, late-borns will have to share from the beginning,” Rohrer explains.
“Another possible factor is described by the tutoring hypothesis: A firstborn can “tutor” their younger siblings, explaining to them how the world works and so on. Teaching other people has high cognitive demands – the children need to recall their own knowledge, structure it and think of a good way to explain it to younger siblings, which could provide a boost to intelligence for some firstborns.”
