Aggregate and Distributive Analyses of Birth Order Effects

这项拟议中的研究遵循了PI在20多年前做出的一项预测，即SAT在当时惊人地下降，将继续下降四年，并且这一趋势将在1980年逆转。特别是，该假设认为，总SAT趋势遵循总的国家出生顺序。这一预测不仅得到了证实，而且恰好发生在1980年（这也是全国出生顺序趋势的逆转），而且在英国收集的A级考试数据和爱荷华州基本技能考试成绩的数据也与这一预测非常一致。该预测来自智力发展的汇合模型，该模型侧重于儿童成长期间家庭中不断变化的智力环境，并解释了不同出生等级和家庭规模的儿童智力成熟度的差异。拟议的研究旨在审查一些国家的综合智力表现数据，以测试出生顺序和智力表现分数的综合趋势之间的关系的一般性。研究还将探讨集体价值观，刻板印象和对出生顺序的态度，重点关注特定人群，如教师，青少年的父母，未来的父母和高中生。从数据和理论中得出的一个重要推论是集体增强现象。结果发现，包括大比例的第一个出生的队列表现出高标准的卓越，整个群体的表现比第一个出生的比例小的队列更先进。这一现象的动态，不仅在智力表现和出生顺序领域，而且在其他集体领域，将在美国人口中进行广泛研究，在波兰，日本，可能还有中国。

The proposed research follows a prediction made by the PI more than twenty years ago that SATs, which were then alarmingly dropping, would continue to decline for four years, and that the trend would reverse itself in 1980. In particular, the hypothesis held that aggregate SAT trends follow aggregate national birth orders. Not only was this prediction confirmed, the reversal occurring exactly in 1980 (which was also a reversal for national trends in birth order) but remarkably consistent with it were data on the A-levels collected in the United Kingdom and on the Iowa Basic Skills scores. The prediction derives from the confluence model of intellectual development which focuses on the changing intellectual environment in the family during the children's growth years and explains differences in intellectual maturity of children of different birth ranks and family sizes. The proposed research seeks to examine data on aggregate intellectual performance in a number of countries to test the generality of the relationship found between aggregate trends in birth order and intellectual performance scores. Research will also inquire into collective values, stereotypes, and attitudes toward birth order focusing on specific populations, such as teachers, parents of teen-agers, prospective parents, and high school students. An important derivation from the data and theory is the phenomenon of collective potentiation. It was found that cohorts that include large proportions of first born manifest high standards of excellence, and the entire group performs at a more advanced level than cohorts with small proportions of first borns. The dynamics of this phenomenon, not only in the area of intellectual performance and birth order, but in other collective domains, will be extensively studied in the United States population, and in Poland, Japan, and possibly China.