The effects of birth order on locus of control

Abstract

Nine-year-old children were used in examination of the effects of birth order on locus of control. It was found that both the first born and the last born in families of three siblings or more had a more external locus of control than middle-born children. In addition, last-born children were more external in large families. It is probable that failure of previous studies to agree on similar effects was due to differences in the number of siblings for subjects used in the sample. © 1980, The Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.