No evidence that middleborns feel less close to family and closer to friends than other birth orders.

Middleborns have been argued to be the neglected birth order. The present study aimed to test whether the emotional closeness to parents, siblings or friends differed between middleborns and otherborns, across two different datasets. Using a between family design this study accounted for gender, nationality, educational attainment, age and sibship size via matching. We found no evidence to suggest that middleborns differ from otherborns in familial sentiment. The sign of closeness to friends was in the opposite direction than predicted, with middleborns being less close than other birth orders. The findings are discussed with reference to current literature on birth order and familial sentiment.

Ordered delinquency: the "effects" of birth order on delinquency.

Juvenile delinquency has long been associated with birth order in popular culture. While images of the middle child acting out for attention or the rebellious youngest child readily spring to mind, little research has attempted to explain why. Drawing from Adlerian birth order theory and Sulloway's born-to-rebel hypothesis, I examine the relationship between birth order and a variety of delinquent outcomes during adolescence. Following some recent research on birth order and intelligence, I use new methods that allow for the examination of between-individual and within-family differences to better address the potential spurious relationship. My findings suggest that contrary to popular belief, the relationship between birth order and delinquency is spurious. Specifically, I find that birth order effects on delinquency are spurious and largely products of the analytic methods used in previous tests of the relationship. The implications of this finding are discussed.