Poor only child?

Sibling myths: Part 4

They always want to get their own way and can't share, according to the common prejudice against cuddly only children. If you look for it, you will probably always find confirmation of the cliché of the siblingless bully. In science, the idea dates back to 1896. The educationalist E. Bohannon from Clark University in Massachusetts presented test subjects with a questionnaire - a fairly new form of data collection at the time - with questions about the disposition of any only children who came to mind.

In 196 out of 200 cases, they described the children concerned as «over-indulged». Other experts agreed with Bohannon. The widespread scepticism towards only children at the time was also due to the fact that middle-class families were having fewer and fewer children and many a privileged contemporary feared the spread of supposedly inferior social classes.

In the early 20th century, there were even widespread concerns that growing up without siblings would turn children into hypersensitive mimosas. If parents focussed all their worries and fears on one offspring, they themselves would eventually become hypochondriacs with weak nerves.

Lone children are more likely to develop fictitious friends with whom they bond and share everyday life. This promotes their social development.

All rubbish, says the data situation in the 21st century. Only children do not show any serious deficits. Toni Falbo, a psychologist at the University of Texas in Austin and an only child herself, rejects the idea that you necessarily need siblings to grow up to be a decent person.

In her 1986 review, for which she analysed more than 200 studies on the subject, she came to the conclusion that the characteristics of only children and siblings do not differ. Only the relationship with the parents appears to be special; it was closer in the only children studied.

A particularly good relationship with the parents

This was confirmed by a 2018 study by Sven Stadtmüller and Andreas Klocke from the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences, who analysed longitudinal data from around 10,00 German schoolchildren to identify the characteristics of first-borns, nestlings, sandwich children and siblings without siblings.

Among other things, they looked at the quality of the parent-child relationship, which they considered to be very good if the child stated that it was easy for them to talk to both their mother and father about important personal matters. Only children were the most likely to say yes to this at around 25 per cent, closely followed by first-born children at just under 24 per cent.

Among the middle-aged children, 20 per cent and among the youngest 18 per cent reported a very good relationship with both parents. This is a surprising finding, as nestlings are said to be particularly attached to their mum.

Despite having a good relationship with their parents, only children often regret growing up without siblings. In 2001, Lisen Roberts from Western Carolina University in Cullowhee and Priscilla Blanton from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville asked siblingless young adults to evaluate their childhood in retrospect.

Many found it particularly unfortunate that they did not have a familiar playmate like other children with siblings. In fact, only children of pre-school age are more likely to develop fictitious friends with whom they form alliances and share everyday life.

There is no need to worry. On the contrary: creative play with an imaginary companion actually promotes social development and communication skills. However, there is certainly evidence that only children are somewhat less willing to socialise with others. New findings on the subject come from China, where the one-child policy dictated family planning for 36 years.

Only children turned out to be better lateral thinkers. Above all, they were ahead in the flexible thinking category.

Researchers led by psychologist Jiang Qiu from Southwest University in Chongqing analysed 126 students without siblings and 177 with siblings in terms of mental ability and personality. The only children scored lower in the compatibility trait in a survey.

According to the five-factor model of personality, particularly agreeable people are altruistic, helpful, compassionate and co-operative. Those who are less agreeable are often characterised as argumentative, distrustful and self-centred, as well as being more competitive. The test subjects also had to master the «Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking».

For example, they had to come up with as many original uses as possible for an everyday object, such as a tin can. Only children turned out to be better lateral thinkers. They came out on top in the flexible thinking category in particular.

The authors explain this, among other things, by the fact that people without siblings often had to occupy themselves alone as children and thus became inventive at an early age.

Better imagination, poorer emotional regulation?

But that's not all: a magnetic resonance imaging test even revealed differences in brain structure. In the supramarginal gyrus, a cortex area that researchers associate with creativity and imagination, they found more grey matter in only children.

However, they discovered fewer grey cells than in the students with siblings in the frontal brain, more precisely in the medial prefrontal cortex. This deficit was associated with lower tolerance. Earlier studies have also attributed important functions in the processing of emotional information to this brain region - including the ability to attribute feelings to other people and to regulate one's own.

In a study, only children turned out to be better lateral thinkers. They came out on top in the flexible thinking category in particular.

However, Rainer Riemann, Professor of Differential Psychology at Bielefeld University, advises that findings such as these should always be critically scrutinised. «Studies that examine the characteristics of only children or siblings of a certain birth order should generally be treated with caution,» he points out.

«Here it is always important to rule out the possibility that other factors that could be linked to the characteristic under consideration are responsible for the differences. In the case of the only child, this is primarily the socio-economic status of the family. Well-off parents tend to have fewer offspring.»

Since it has been proven that children from small families tend to be more intelligent than those from large ones, one might assume that only children outperform all others in terms of intellect. But this is only partly the case.

It is true that they overtake people who were born later in the birth order - i.e. as the second, third or fourth child - by a few IQ points. However, first-borns with siblings lead the ranking of smart people.

They enjoy the full attention of their parents for a while and later act as role models for the younger ones, which may give them a decisive advantage over siblings.

Even single children are not cut off from the world around them. The contacts in the daycare centre offer a diverse training ground.

According to this, first-born children are best able to realise their intellectual potential, with only children in the middle of the field. This tutor effect was postulated in the 1970s by the renowned US social psychologist Robert Zajonc, who taught and researched at Stanford University in California.

How much influence the effect still has today is questionable. This may depend on how many opportunities an only child regularly has to develop their social and cognitive skills. After all, even only children are by no means cut off from their social environment. For example, the contacts at daycare centres offer a diverse interpersonal training ground.

This article first appeared in "Spektrum Psychologie", 1/2019.