Older siblings have higher IQs – Vasabladet

First-born children are more intelligent than their younger siblings. They are also more precocious social, and tend to feel anxiety more often.

say researchers from the University of Illinois in the United States in the most comprehensive study ever on the field. In total, data on 263 712 high school students from across the US analyzed. Of these, 36.3 per cent were first born.

No need, however, feel concerned about the outcome. The differences, although they are measurable, are so small that they are in principle unimportant. On average, differs only a point on the IQ scale between older and younger siblings – a negligible difference.

There are of course many examples of second and third children who are much more intelligent than their older siblings.

The study is published in the Journal of Research in Personality.