Aggregate and Distributive Analyses of Birth Order Effects

出生顺序影响的总体和分布分析

• 批准号: 9726886
• 负责人: Robert Zajonc
• 金额: $ 44.64万
• 依托单位: Stanford University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1998
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1998-06-01 至 2005-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9726886&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Aggregate; Distributive; Analyses; Birth; Order

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.

这项拟议的研究是在20多年前PI做出预测之后进行的，当时SAT正在惊人地下降，将在四年内继续下降，这一趋势将在1980年逆转。特别是，该假说认为，SAT的总体趋势遵循总体国家出生顺序。不仅这一预测得到了证实，而且这种逆转恰好发生在1980年(这也是全国出生顺序趋势的逆转)，而且与之非常一致的是在英国收集的A-Level和爱荷华州基本技能得分的数据。这一预测源于智力发展的汇流模型，该模型关注儿童成长过程中家庭智力环境的变化，并解释了不同出生级别和家庭规模的儿童智力成熟的差异。这项拟议的研究试图检查一些国家的总体智力表现数据，以检验出生顺序总体趋势与智力表现分数之间关系的普遍性。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结论是集体增强现象。研究发现，第一胎比例较大的群体表现出很高的优秀标准，而且整个群体的表现比第一胎比例较小的群体更高。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，将在美国人口中广泛研究，在波兰、日本，可能还有中国。