How Birth Order affects you

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Everyone takes it personally when it comes to birth order. 

Children and parents alike are profoundly affected by the constellations of siblings.. But that doesn’t mean the effects of birth order are as clear or straightforward as we sometimes make them sound. Indeed, birth order can be used to explain every trait and its precise opposite. I’m competitive, driven — typical oldest child! My brother, two years younger, is even more competitive, more driven — typical second child, always trying to catch up! 

“Too many parents are haunted by experiences both good and bad that they identify with their birth order,” said Dr. Peter A. Gorski, a professor of pediatrics, public health and psychiatry at the University of South Florida. And that might lead them to classify their own children according to birth order, he went on, which in turn can lead to a sense of identification or even rejection and to “self-fulfilling prophecies.”

“Birth order doesn’t cause anything,” (says) Frank J. Sulloway, a visiting scholar at the University of California Berkeley Dr. Sulloway said. “It’s simply a proxy for the actual mechanisms that go on in family dynamics that shape character and personality.”

Now, of course birth order played into my patients’ patterns, but so did gender and birth spacing and, above all, temperament. 

"I wouldn’t discount the impact of birth order,” Dr. Gorski told me. “It sets up the structure of one’s place in relation to others from the beginning, as we learn how to react to people of different ages and different relationships.” 

Perri Klass writing in the New York Times

 

Boy tells his dad 'I'm so proud of you'

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Sunk Cost Fallacy

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We all have seen the sunk cost fallacy in action at some point, whether it be sitting through that bad movie because we have already paid for it or finishing that awful book because we were already halfway through. Everyone has been in a situation where they ended up wasting more time because they were trying to salvage the time they had already invested. A sunk cost, also known as a retrospective cost, is one that has already been incurred and cannot be recovered by any additional action. The sunk cost fallacy refers to the tendency of human beings to make decisions based on how much of an investment they have already made, which leads to even more investment but no returns whatsoever. Sometimes, hard as it is, the best thing to do is to let go.

A way to save yourself from this cognitive bias is by focusing on future benefits and costs rather than the already lost past costs. You have to develop the habit, hard as it is, of ignoring the previous cost information.   

Rahul Agarwal writing in Built in

Two Unhealthy Ways of Relating to the World

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Most people who come to see a psychiatrist are suffering from what is called either neurosis or a character disorder. Put most simply, these two conditions are disorders of responsibility, and as such they are opposite styles of relating to the world and its problems. The neurotic assumes too much responsibility ; the person with character disorder not enough. When neurotics are in conflict with the world they automatically assume that they are at fault. When those with character disorders are in conflict with the world they automatically assume that the world is at fault. 

Even the speech patterns of neurotics and those with character disorders are different. The speech of the neurotic is notable for such expressions as “I ought to,” “I should,” and “I shouldn’t” indicating the individual’s self0image as an inferior man or woman always falling short of the mark, always making the wrong choices. The speech of a person with a character disorder, however ,relies heavily on “I can’t,” “I couldn’t” “I have to,” and “I had to” demonstrating a self-image of a being who has no power of choice, whose behavior is completely directed by external forces total beyond his or her control.

As might be imagined, neurotics, compared with character disordered people, are easy to work with in psychotherapy because the assume responsibility for their difficulties and there fore see themselves as having problems. Whose with character disorders are much more difficult, if not impossible, to work with because they don’t see themselves as the source of their problems; they see the world rather than themselves as being in need of change and there fore fail to recognize the necessity for self-examination.

M Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

 

Sexual Repression

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The media has contributed to the confusion in our culture between repression and suppression. "Poster after poster, film after film, novel after novel, (CS) Lewis notes, “associate the idea of sexual indulgence with the ideas of health, normality, youth, frankness, and good humour.” He claims this association gives a false impression and is a lie. “Like all powerful lies,” Lewis explains, “it is based on a truth.. that sex in itself.. is ‘normal’ and ‘healthy’.. the lie consists in the suggestion that any sexual act to which you are tempted at the moment is also healthy and normal.” Lewis adds that human sexuality, like gravity or any other aspect of our universe, cannot in itself be moral or immoral. Sexuality, like the rest of the universe, is given by God and therefore good. How people express their sexuality, on the other hand, can be moral or immoral. 

Armand Nicholi, The Question of God