Aggregate and Distributive Analyses of Birth Order Effects

这项提议的研究遵循了PI在20多年前做出的预测，即当时正在惊人下降的sat将继续下降四年，并在1980年逆转这一趋势。特别是，该假设认为，总体SAT趋势遵循总体国家出生顺序。这一预测不仅得到了证实，而且恰好在1980年发生了逆转（这也是全国出生顺序趋势的逆转），而且在英国收集的a -level和爱荷华州基础技能分数的数据也与此惊人地一致。这一预测来源于智力发展的汇合模型，该模型关注儿童成长过程中家庭智力环境的变化，并解释了不同出生等级和家庭规模儿童智力成熟度的差异。拟议的研究试图检查一些国家的总体智力表现数据，以测试出生顺序的总体趋势与智力表现得分之间的关系的普遍性。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、准父母和高中生。从数据和理论中得出的一个重要推论是集体增强现象。研究发现，头胎比例大的队列表现出较高的卓越标准，整个组的表现比头胎比例小的队列更先进。这种现象的动态，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，波兰，日本，可能还有中国进行广泛研究。

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.