Authors: Frank J. Sulloway
ISBN-13: 9780679758761, ISBN-10: 0679758763
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Date Published: September 1997
Edition: Reissue
Frank J. Sulloway has a Ph.D. from Harvard. He is a M.I.T. Research Scholar and also a recipient of a MacArthur 'Genius' grant. He is the author of Freud: Biologist of the Mind. He lives in Massachusetts.
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
"An important and valuable study that will define research agendas for years to come. It is also hugely fun to read."
Boston Globe
Why do people raised in the same families often differ more dramatically in personality than those from different families? What made Charles Darwin, Benjamin Franklin, and Voltaire uniquely suited to challenge the conventional wisdom of their times? This pioneering inquiry into the significance of birth order answers both these questions with a conceptual boldness that has made critics compare it with the work of Freud and of Darwin himself.
Frank J. Sulloway envisions families as ecosystems in which siblings compete for parental favor by occupying specialized niches. Combing through thousands of biographies in politics, science, and religion, he demonstrates that firstborn children are more likely to identify with authority whereas their younger siblings are predisposed to rise against it. Family dynamics, Sulloway concludes, is a primary engine of historical change. Elegantly written, masterfully researched, Born to Rebel is a grand achievement that has galvanized historians and social scientists and will fascinate anyone who has ever pondered the enigma of human character.
"Daring . . . a stunning achievement. "
The New York Times Book Review
The thesis advanced by M.I.T. research scholar Sulloway (Freud: Biologist of the Mind) in this provocative, sure-to-be-controversial study is that firstborn children identify more strongly with power and authority and are more conforming, conventional and defensive, whereas younger siblings are more adventurous, rebellious and inclined to question the status quo. He bases this conclusion on birth-order research and on his theory that siblings jockey for niches within the family in Darwinian fashion: while firstborns defend their special status, later-borns are more open to experience because accessibility helps them maximize attention and love from their parents. Providing a detailed statistical analysis of thousands of individuals' responses to 28 scientific innovations-Darwinism, the Copernican revolution, Einstein's relativity, etc.-Sulloway concludes that most have been initiated and championed by later-borns, whereas firstborns tend to reject new ideas. He overstates his case when he interprets the French Revolution's Reign of Terror as fundamentally a battle between firstborn conservatives and later-born liberals, and his analysis of the Protestant Reformation in similar terms is debatable. And although Darwin, Voltaire, Ralph Nader and abolitionist Harriet Tubman were later-born siblings, Einstein, Freud, Galileo, Newton, Kepler, Lavoisier and many other radical innovators were firstborns, casting doubt on birth-order influence. Photos. First serial to the New Yorker. (Nov.)
Introduction | ||
Pt. 1 | Birth Order and Revolutionary Personality | |
1 | Openness to Scientific Innovation | 3 |
2 | Birth Order and Scientific Revolutions | 20 |
3 | Birth Order and Personality | 55 |
Pt. 2 | All in the Family | |
4 | Family Niches | 83 |
5 | Developmental Glitches | 119 |
6 | Gender | 148 |
7 | Temperament | 172 |
8 | Exceptions to the Rule | 195 |
Pt. 3 | Social and Political Thought | |
9 | Social Attitudes | 217 |
10 | The Darwinian Revolution as Social History | 236 |
11 | The Protestant Reformation | 255 |
12 | Political Trends | 284 |
13 | The French Revolution | 306 |
Pt. 4 | Synthesis | |
14 | Social and Intellectual Context | 329 |
15 | Conclusion | 352 |
Appendix 1 | A Brief Introduction to Statistics (or Correlations Made Easy) | 371 |
Appendix 2 | Coding Procedures for Variables in the Study | 376 |
Appendix 3 | Criteria for Selection of Participants in Scientific Controversies | 383 |
Appendix 4 | Expert Raters and Other Collaborators | 386 |
Appendix 5 | Techniques for Estimating Missing Data | 389 |
Appendix 6 | Data and Expert Ratings on Social Attitudes | 394 |
Appendix 7 | Modeling the Protestant Reformation | 398 |
Appendix 8 | Modeling the French Revolution | 403 |
Appendix 9 | Miscellaneous Technical Discussions | 414 |
Appendix 10 | Suggestions for Future Research | 430 |
Appendix 11 | How to Test Your Own Propensity to Rebel | 440 |
List of Illustrations | 445 | |
List of Figures | 449 | |
List of Tables | 451 | |
Acknowledgments | 452 | |
Notes | 457 | |
Bibliography | 541 | |
Index | 617 |