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Páginas: 283-292 Recibido: 2022-02-17 Revisado: 2022-03-25 Aceptado: 2023-03-28 Preprint: 2023-04-21 Publicación
Final: 2023-09-01 |
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Birth Order Theory related to Emotional Intelligence
development
La teoría del
Orden de Nacimiento en relación con la Inteligencia Emocional
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Marina Villanueva-Iglesias |
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Judit García-Martín |
Abstract
For many years psychologists have been examining the relation between the
Birth Order Theory and personality features, without taking
into account an essential psychological construct, Emotional
Intelligence (EI). That is why this present study analyses the existent
relation between this last psychological variable, which mainly shows the
amount of control people are used to have dealing
with their emotions, and the position held at birth. This last Theory is based
on the idea of Birth Order, considering if someone was born the first one or
maybe the second or even third (and more). This has been executed through the
design and implementation of an ad hoc online questionnaire to a sample of 203
participants, in which 50 of them are men and 153 are women. Once the
questionnaire is done, its results are revised and analysed. The results have
shown that there are statistically significant differences in four fundamental
psychological variables: emotion regulation, confrontation, self-control, and
affective empathy, being able to establish that
second borns tend to develop a better EI. These differences are shown mainly between the firstborn
and the second or third child to be born. Finally, these results are discussed
to establish conclusions and raise possible lines of future investigations in
this educational psychological field.
Resumen
Desde hace años, investigadores
psicológicos vienen examinando la relación entre la Teoría del Orden de
Nacimiento y los rasgos de personalidad obviando un constructo psicológico
esencial, la Inteligencia Emocional (EI). Es por ello, por lo que en el
presente estudio se analiza la relación existente entre esta variable
psicológica, que indica principalmente el grado de gestión de las propias
emociones ante diferentes situaciones personales, y el puesto familiar que se
ocupa al nacer, es decir, teniendo en cuenta si una persona es la primogénita o
en otro caso ocupa otros lugares como segundo o tercer hijo en la familia. Todo
ello es realizado a través del diseño y la aplicación de un cuestionario ad hoc
online, a 203 participantes (50 hombres y 153 mujeres), con edades comprendidas
entre los 18 y 33 años. Los análisis realizados de los datos aportados por el
cuestionario muestran diferencias estadísticamente significativas,
principalmente entre los primogénitos y los hijos que ocupan el segundo o el
tercer lugar atendiendo al orden de nacimiento, en cuatro variables
psicológicas fundamentales: la regulación emocional, el afrontamiento, el
autocontrol y la empatía afectiva; pudiendo otorgar mayor grado de IE a los nacidos en segundo lugar. Para finalmente, discutir los
resultados, establecer conclusiones y plantear posibles líneas de investigación
futura, en el campo de la psicología.
Keywords/Palabras
clave
Adults, psychology,
intelligence, emotion, research, questionnaire, management, emotional
development.
Adultos, psicología, inteligencia, afectividad, investigación,
cuestionario, gestión, desarrollo afectivo.
1.
Introduction
The concept of Emotional Intelligence (EI) was approached, for the first time
around 1980, by psychologist Gardner. Since then, it has been considered as a
field of scientific interest, until then 'undervalued', due
to the fact that the intelligence quotient (IQ) prevailed in different
situations. Therefore, a new idea arises that places
greater importance on personal development and how a person acts at certain
times, in this case related to birth order (Barni et
al., 2014). In 1997, Mayer and Salovey defined EI as follows: “the ability to
perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions so as to assist thought, to
understand emotions and emotional knowledge, and to reflectively regulate
emotions so as to promote emotional and intellectual growth” (Mayer &
Salovey, 1997, pp. 3-31). It is from this moment when the study of EI begins to
gain importance in society and the research lines of some psychologists. Since
then, EI has been considered a fundamental capacity of the human being to
maintain stability at an interpersonal and intrapersonal level.
Considering all of the above, this
research analyses the development of EI within a specific family role, which means taking into
account the position held in the family. In this sense, the role of children
according to birth order has been the main interest in numerous investigations, mainly for the IQ among siblings (Rohrer et al., 2015). These have mainly focused
on the idea of personality development, such as Sulloway
in Born to Rebel (1996), who achieves to determine some variables with the
personality effects according to birth order. Another
interesting example of this field could be the study carried out by Salmon et
al., (2016), in which they show that younger children tend to develop more
prosocial behaviours than older children, or how the environment they grow up in can
affect them (Bleske et al., 2014).
In this regard, the studied variables will be classified into the next
specific investigation fields: Reparation, which is referred to as the ability
by which one person is able to regulate their emotional states in an
appropriate way; Confrontation/Coping, defined as the capacity which allows the
correct management of emotions and stress when facing the problem-situation.
Self-control, known as how people tend to react to adverse and positive
consequences, synonymously with self-management (Peterson et al., 2021). And
finally, affective empathy, which is the capacity by which someone is able to feel what the other people feel. In other words,
affective empathy means being able to understand the emotions of other people.
Other studies about this topic are considered, such as the one carried out by
Damian and Roberts in 2015. In this study the association between birth order
and features of personality and intelligence is investigated, proposing that
second borns are more social and empathetic people.
To end with the introduction, it’s important to show the reasons that
have motivated this study, which lie in the interest of knowing how people's
minds can work according to the specific role that has been assigned to them,
because growing up with the stigma of being the first child is very different
from the one of growing up being the last.
Consequently, it is in this way that the search for answers can shed some light
on such an ambiguous but interesting subject, being able to generate a kind of
differential pattern, as other investigations, which have studied how this can
be related with the size of the family and age (Fitniwilis
et al., 2022).
Considering all of the above, this study
intends to carry out research by using an ad hoc online questionnaire, which is
meant to examine the existence or not of differential patterns in relation to
the Birth Order Theory and the different features of EI. The purpose is to
clarify this relationship and create a new topic of psychological research in
the family and development sphere, that is why this will be the main objective
all over the article.
1.1. Birth Order Theory of descendants
This study is founded on the Birth Order Theory, which is
based on the premise that there are a series of external factors that can
determine certain future behaviours of the subject in various aspects of life,
sometimes overgenaralised (Aranda & Chávez,
2017). The idea emerged when Adler, in 1918, began to question how birth order
can affect the personal development of a person. Establishing a series of
patterns, each of them attributed to a specific position in the family
(descendants), Adler considered this: "It is not, of course, the child's
number in the order of successive births which influences his character, but
the situation into which he is born and the way in which he interprets it'' (Alder, 1956, p. 377).
In this way, there have been diverse studies which have been
carried out around this topic for a century, such as the relationship between this theory
and the development of personality to
determine profiles (Boccio & Beaver, 2019). In
this regard, it is interesting to review the study carried out by Damian and
Roberts, in 2015, with a sample of 272,003 American students from the sixties.
It shows that there are factors such as the family environment or parental care
for the first children, which can determine their personality according to
birth order. It is also worth mentioning the study carried out by González in
2003, with 110 participants from 55 pairs of siblings. This study showed the
existence of differences in the development of the personality between them,
mainly between the first-born and the second-born, since they affirmed that the
family environment develops differently and it is important to consider
parents’ attitudes towards them (Lejarraga et al., 2010).
However, other investigations have examined the relationship between
this theory and the influence of parental support and their behaviours, showing
negative effects in those children that are physically/corporal punished,
because it may lead to a future trauma. Also considering that first borns are the ones which are less likely to receive this
type of punishment and are, as well, the ones to receive more
chances/opportunities in the studying field among their siblings (Kim &
Wang, 2023).
1.2. State of Emotional Intelligence (EI)
According to Goleman (1995), EI is defined as the person's
ability to control their emotions so that they are expressed appropriately and
effectively, namely it is the
capacity which helps someone to manage their interpersonal relationships
following five main domains: self-awareness,
self-regulation /self-control, motivation, empathy, and social skills. He also
argues that in EI, emotional abilities have a lot of power which allows one to
control their moods. As a result of it these are called social competencies.
Therefore, this research focuses on the analysis of possible patterns in the
relationship between the birth order of children and the development of their
EI.
Many psychologists have focused their research on finding
answers to the development of EI and have thus managed to propose their
theories, giving way to a new field of interpersonal and intrapersonal
research. Gardner (1983), the psychologist who mainly stands out in this area,
confirms the existence of eight multiple intelligences not focused only on the
IQ, as it had been thought until then. He argues that there are more features
of personal development which need to be kept in mind. Of these eight different
intelligences, this study focuses on the intrapersonal and interpersonal ones
since it is considered where EI arises. For Gardner, both of these
types of intelligences compound the EI, taking into account that this
aspect can not be evaluated by the IQ of someone
(Singh, 2022). That explains that
intrapersonal intelligence is based on the ability to
build an accurate perception of oneself and vital organisation, including self-discipline, self-understanding
and self-esteem. On the other hand, interpersonal intelligence focuses on how
one person can perceive differences among others, contrasting among their
moods, temperament and so on (Chura et al., 2019).
This is how EI derives from both, to form the
capacity by which sensations can be recognized and handle correctly in social
relationships, or even to help people to adapt themselves to different
situations which can appear along their lives, such us starting college
(Merino-Tejedor et al., 2018).
Salovey and Mayer, psychologists in this field, were discriminated against for joining
two previously separate concepts: intelligence and emotions, but their research
eventually led to exhaustive search for information about EI and its
significance at a personal level. With this, they show that those people who
have high levels of EI will be able to be more open to the possible positive or
negative effects of the experience and will be able to develop as a person and
gain knowledge of their behaviour, as for women who tend to present higher
levels of EI (Salguero & Fernández-Berrocal,
2010). Finally, they consider that the field of EI must be integrated as one
more capacity to take into account and above all to
educate on it (Mayer & Salovey, 1993). Considering this last fact, studies
have shown that adults with EI compenteces tend to avoid bullying
scenes, either being the aggressor or the victim, that is why it is an
important field to work on since people are kids (Rueda et al., 2022).
2. Method
2.1. Objective and hypothesis
The main objective of this study is to examine the existence or not of
some type of relationship between the position held in the family and the
development of EI. In accordance with the general purpose, the following
hypotheses are raised:
H1. Position held at birth affects EI scores, with higher scores among
those who were born in the middle or last place.
H2. Scores in personal conscience are higher in the first-borns than in
the rest.
H3. Empathy level directly correlates to EI.
2.2. Participants
In
November 2020, during the situation of the state of alarm caused by the global
pandemic of Covid-19, a total of 203 Spanish students aged 18-33, the average age of the participants is [ 
= 19.39], were surveyed by using an online ad
hoc questionnaire. For that 56.7% of the total participants are
university students, due to the majority of
18-year-old participants. In addition, 75.3% of those
surveyed are women (N=153) and the 24.7% are men (N=50), as you can see in table 1.
Table 1.
Description of the participants.
|
Sex/Birth order |
Firstborn |
Second |
Third |
Fourth |
Fifth |
Total sex |
|
Female |
84 |
46 |
14 |
7 |
2 |
153 |
|
Male |
30 |
15 |
4 |
1 |
0 |
50 |
|
Total participants |
114 |
61 |
18 |
8 |
2 |
203 |
Furthermore, regarding the number of siblings, it can be observed
that 52.78% of the participants (N = 26) are only children compared to 47.22%
(N = 177) which have siblings. Contrasting with this, birth order parameters allude to the firstborns majority, with a
percentage equal to 56.2% (N = 114), the secondborns
with 30% (N = 61), the third ones to be born with 8.9% (N = 18), the fourths to
be born with 3.9% (N = 8) and in the last place the fifth to be born with 1% (N
= 2).
At the same time, examining the educational level of the
students and the Birth Order Theory, as it is shown in figure 1, 56.7% (N =
114) are university students, 31.3% (N = 63) are High School
students, 10% (N = 20) are Vocational Training students and finally the rest 2%
(N = 4) are Secondary School students.
Figure 1.
Educational level of the participants according to birth order
2.3. Instrument
An ad hoc online questionnaire was designed by
using the web tool named Google Forms. This
tool was selected because of its utility, accessibility, simultaneity,
facility, and efficiency for the compilation and the extraction of data in
multiple ways, as well as for the impossibility of compiling information in
other ways, because of the exceptional situation of the Covid-19.
The questionnaire
is formed by four sections and sixty one items.To prove the reliability
of the instrument the coefficient of Cronbach Alpha is calculated, measuring
the intern consistency, which shows a value of α= .85, that evidences a good
reliability of the instrument.
The first section (I) presents the investigation,
registering the informed consent and the compilation of demographic information
such as age, sex, family position, or the number of family members there are.
The second section (II), is centred on the objective of examining the EI of the participants,
employing the adaptation of the TMMS-24 questionnaire provided by its authors,
Extremera et al., 2004 . In this sense,
only twelve ítems
have been used out of the twenty-four questions offered by the initial
questionnaire, drawn in an equitable way from each psychological variable
examined: emotion perception (attention), emotion comprehension/understanding
(clarity), and emotion regulation (reparation) which are shown in table 2. These twelve items were
selected out of the twenty four in total, in order to
adapt the questionnaire to all the aspects which were able to reach, and the
classification they followed.
Table 2.
Variables from the EI analysis
|
EI variables |
How
often ... |
|||
|
Emotion
perception (attention) |
... do I pay
close attention to feelings? (1) |
... do I spend
time thinking about my emotions? (3) |
... do I think
it is worth being aware of my emotions and moods? (4) |
... do I let my
emotions affect my thoughts? (5) |
|
Emotion
understanding (clarity) |
... am I clear
about my feelings? (9) |
... do I know
how I feel? (11) |
... am I aware
of my feelings in different situations? (13)
|
...can I tell
how I feel? (14) |
|
Emotion
regulation (reparation) |
..., when I am
sad, do I think about the pleasures of life? (19) |
..., when I
feel bad, do I manage to have positive thoughts? (20) |
... am I able
to calm down in front of an unwanted situation? (21) |
... do I worry
about having a good mood? (22) |
|
|
||||
Note 1. The numbers that appear in
the parentheses refer to the position of the item on the initial scale (TMMS-24
by Extremera et al., 2004).
The third section (III) is orientated, as the last one, to
the knowledge of the EI of the participants relating it with different
psychological variables. Some of these items are adapted from the Emily Sterrett Test. In this way, this section is structured
using the following variables: self-awareness, self-confidence, self-efficacy,
motivation, attributions, coping, self-control, social competence, and empathy.
The section four (IV)
is based on the analysis of the participants' empathy through the Basic Empathy
Scale with 9 items about affective and cognitive empathy (Merino-Soto & Grimaldo-Muchotrigo, 2015; Oliva et al., 2011). And
finally, the last section will be the acknowledgements and the end of the questionnaire.
The method used has been derived from the one developed at first by
Salovey et al., (1995) known as Trait Meta-Mood Scale (TMMS). This method of
contrasting data about EI, one of the first developed, consists of a
fundamental tool for those people who choose to investigate EI and how it can
affect different abilities (Fernández-Berrocal & Extremera, 2005). The personal perception of the subjects
about their mood or the possible regulation of their emotions and feelings have
also been included. This method has given rise to the interest of other
psychologists such as Extremera et al., (2004), who
have developed another version of this questionnaire known as TMMS-24 in
Spanish, in which 24 items related to three different psychological variables
can be found: attention, clarity, and reparation. This questionnaire had
previously been psychologically validated by experts as is shown in Jiménez-Macías et al., (2021) study, and even taken
into account to measure EI on the education field (Bisquerra
& López-Cassà, 2021).
2.4. Procedure
A search of the international instruments which are previous to the examined sections has been conducted, to
give coherence and articulate the analysed variables of the ad hoc online
questionnaire. It is also sent to some experts on the topic following the
Delphi method, with the final aim of checking the functionality and operativity
so as to delete all the possible difficulties that
could be derived from the items’ interpretation.
Once the ambiguous items have been changed, it is dispatched
to the students via email, social media (such as Facebook, LinkedIn, or
WhatsApp groups) and academic media.
The link is operative during November. After the deadline,
the resultant array is downloaded. Some pertinent codifications are made, and
the appropriate statistical analysis is carried out, through the SPSS program,
25th version, which has approached the empirical evidence of this study.
Related to the above, first, the relative descriptive
analysis of the average and the standard deviation one is carried out to
describe the participants. After this, the parametric analysis is made. It is
performed through asymmetric tests and kurtosis which can determine that the
distribution achieves the postulation without incident. Finally, some
parametric analyses are carried out through ANOVA.
3. Results
3.1. Parametric analysis
First of all, t Student test
is done for independent samples, considering sex as a grouping variable. In
this sense, statically significant differences appear between men and women in
seven of the items. In the majority there is a positive tendency for women (Eg. How often am I
concerned about having a good mood?
[MMen = 3.73 vs. MWomen = 3.90; p
Multivariate
analysis of the variables are made by taking birth
order as a fixed factor and as dependent variables on every item related to EI that forms the ad hoc online questionnaire. In this sense,
the multivariate contrasts show
significant statistical differences as far as
birth order is concerned, with a small size effect.
[λWilks = .254, F(438.576,
156.000) = 1.629; p
According
to the intrasubject-effects, if
birth order is considered as a grouping variable, significant statistical
differences can be shown, as it can be seen in table 3, relating them with the
effect size.
Table 3.
Trials of the intrasubject effects taking
into account birth order as a grouping variable and all the measures of
EI as dependent variables.
|
How
often… |
First |
Second |
Third |
Fourth |
F |
p |
η2 |
|
… do I have my feelings clear? |
3.43 (.87) |
3.44 (.86) |
2.83 (1.38) |
2.75 (1.04) |
3.431 |
.018 |
.050 |
|
… when I feel bad, do I get to have positive thoughts? |
2.82 (1.02) |
2.80 (1.05) |
2.06 (1.06) |
2.38 (.97) |
3.313 |
.021 |
.048 |
|
… do I express myself honestly, without being overwhelmed? |
3.63 (.92) |
3.69 (.92) |
4.28 (.96) |
3.25 (.89) |
3.213 |
.024 |
.047 |
|
... do others feel inspired and motivated after talking
with me? |
3.46 (.74) |
3.67 (.57) |
3.28 (.96) |
4.00 (.76) |
2.996 |
.032 |
.044 |
|
… when I have a problem, do I use the sense of humour to
minimise its significance? |
3.18 (1.10) |
3.36 (1.02) |
4.06 (.80) |
3.00 (1.07) |
3.833 |
.011 |
.055 |
|
… when a problem arises, do I take refuge in religious or
spiritual beliefs? |
1.81 (1.07) |
1.72 (.99) |
1.50 (.86) |
2.75 (1.17) |
2.907 |
.036 |
.042 |
|
… when a problem arises, do I search for different
alternatives, I reflect about them and I choose the
correct one? |
3.60 (.86) |
3.41 (.97) |
3.94 (1.06) |
2.88 (1.13) |
3.079 |
.029 |
.045 |
|
… am I able not to hold
onto the problems, anger or past wounds, leaving them behind to move forward? |
3.24 (.93) |
3.49 (.77) |
2.67 (1.19) |
2.75 (1.04) |
4.705 |
.003 |
.067 |
|
… do I feel happy when I see happy people? |
4.01 (.79) |
4.38 (.80) |
4.17 (1.10) |
4.38 (.52) |
2.906 |
.036 |
.042 |
Likewise,
the Post hoc trials, as it can be shown in table 4, show differential patterns
between the firstborn and the second/third-borns in
diverse items. These differences appear at the confrontation and the affective
empathy level, which evinces lower scores on the firstborns.
Table 4.
Post hoc attending to birth order as a grouping variable and
all the measures of EI as dependent.
|
How
often...? |
1st
vs. 2nd |
1st
vs. 3rd |
1st
vs. 4th |
2nd
vs. 3rd |
2nd
vs. 4th |
3rd
vs. 4th |
|
… when I feel bad, do I get to have positive thoughts? |
n.s. |
.04 |
n.s. |
n.s. |
n.s. |
n.s. |
|
... when I have a problem, do I use the sense of humour to
minimise its significance? |
n.s. |
.02 |
n.s. |
n.s. |
n.s. |
n.s. |
|
… when a problem arises, do I take refuge in religious or spiritual beliefs? |
n.s. |
n.s. |
n.s. |
n.s. |
n.s. |
.05 |
|
… am I able not to hold onto the problems, anger, or past
wounds, leaving them behind to move forward? |
n.s. |
n.s. |
n.s. |
.01 |
n.s. |
n.s. |
|
… do I feel happy when I see happy people? |
.05 |
n.s. |
n.s. |
n.s. |
n.s. |
n.s. |
Note 2. n.s. is the abbreviation of not statistically significant differences.
4. Discussion
The results obtained in the present study, from the analysis of diverse
psychological variables in relation to EI, show statistically significant
differences in different aspects of EI. Results can confirm hypothesis 1,
regarding the fact that there are some variables, like this case the order of
birth, which may affect EI of people.
Despite all of the above, the most significant
and remarkable differences have been found in the area of confrontation/coping
with others. This is so because in the confrontation part of the questionnaire
coping with a problem is made by the search for support in spiritual or social
aspects. That is why there are significant differences between firstborns and
third borns, in terms of the question of facing a
problem through the sense of humour. This can also be answered by how people
were educated when they were younger and how society used to communicate with
them, because depending on how they did it could have affected their stress
levels and using worse coping mechanisms than the rest (Leria
et al., 2021). On the other hand, there are differences between third borns and fourth borns, as to the
question of facing a problem taking refuge in religious or spiritual beliefs.
In the first case presented, higher results are obtained in third borns, which implies that they relate more to the idea of
the use of the sense of humour as a method of coping avoidance. However, the
result in the second question is higher in the adults born in the fourth place,
who identify themselves more accurately with the question posed and use
religion or spirituality as avoidance coping. This can mean that in the
adolescence-adult transition stage, as it is shown in this study, personal
well-being tends to decrease, just as it is presented in the study on coping
styles and strategies (Viñas, et al., 2015). These
higher results in adults born in the fourth place appear in the coping
mechanism through religious or spiritual beliefs, which may be given by their
position in the family. They have grown up in an environment where there have
been three people ahead of them, implying that they can find in religion or
spirituality a way to deal with problems by avoiding creating family conflicts.
Considering this last variable, the result obtained confirms, again,
hypothesis 1. Bringing back that this hypothesis affirms middleborns tend to
develop a higher level of empathy than first borns.
In this regard, Adler established in 1956 that the children who arrive after
other children have been in the family before them develop wide social
capacities. These capacities help them to improve their empathic abilities,
which can contrast with the personality of the firstborns, which show more abilities
to be a leader.
As for EI variables, it is important to mention the significant
difference that appears in one of the items on emotional regulation,
particularly the reparation one. In this case, the differences are observed
between the firstborn and the third-born child, which show more appropriate
control on the part of the firstborn when it comes to feeling bad and getting
positive thoughts. This result can be explained by the definition of Goleman
(1995), who states that EI is a capability that involves self-regulation or
self-control. This can be more developed in firstborns, as they tend to control
all kinds of situations better, and so, they can acquire the ability to
self-regulate their own emotions at critical times, keeping in this way their
figure of responsibility, trust, and control.
In order to conclude with
the analysis of variables and results, another significant difference observed
in the field of self-control within EI deserves to be mentioned, since Goleman
presents it as one of its main domains (Abellán-Roselló
& DeLara-López, 2021). In this case the
difference is evident in the comparison between the second and third born
children, with the highest result obtained in the second ones. This shows that
second children tend to improve more positively and healthily those gaps of the past that can
unsettle consciences in the present
Considering everything which has been discussed, some of the hypotheses
raised at first are verified, which refer to the following aspects: hypothesis
3, which alluded to the idea that empathy correlates with a higher degree of
development in EI, is evinced, for among the subjects that seem to show a
better level of EI, as it can be seen in Table 3, seconds and fourth borns are those who show the highest levels of empathy,
while obtaining both of them the same scores. This could be explained because
having grown up in a family environment in which there had already been
descendants before the arrival of the other siblings can involve broader
development of both interpersonal skills, by living with other people around
them, and intrapersonal relationships.
5.
Conclusions
In conclusion, it is demonstrated that there are fraternal differences
which can be modified according to the position held after birth, which does
not mean that it is always going to happen so, and not only focused in the role that the firstborns tend to hold, when they have
a sibling (Guo et al., 2016). There are many factors that modify people's EI,
considering birth order as one of them, because it is clear
that being born the first or the last, can condition certain behaviours
that will lead people to adopt different stances, either when facing emotional
situations or in their personality development. One of the examples of this
appears when it is found that children around 11-12 years old tend to show a
balance talking about EI levels, which is a great achievement to that age,
where most children deal with different sibling situations (Godoy & Moreno,
2021).
Although the initial objective proposed has been largely verified, this
study is not intended to lead to possible favouritism of parents. This should
try to strengthen the physical and psychic skills of the descendants equally,
and thus achieve an individual development for each child, because these birth
differences don’t appear systematically (Lehmann et al., 2018). That is why it
is recommended that people should stop stereotyping, whether they are only
children or not because in this study, they have not found differences in the
development of self-esteem or empathy between only children and those who have
grown up with siblings.
To complete this study, a number of tips are
given that may affect future research, that is, some data to consider. As in
this case the main limitation of this study has been the reduce sample, that is
why it would be important to obtain a more extensive sample, counting on the
same number of siblings in each family position to obtain more accurate
results, adapted to each position held, including the age gap which exists
among siblings (Van Volkom et al., 2017). Besides, it
is recommended to specify certain issues that may also affect the development
of descendants, such as not having lived with siblings during childhood or
growing up in different settings, for these have not been included in this
study.
It is interesting how EI can be affected by the simple fact that someone
was born at a different time than the other siblings or the fact of being an
only child. Therefore, this study can shed some light on the field of
psychology responsible for family and educational development, as in the EI
field, remarking its regulation and care as a fundamental part of a human
well-being.
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