Birth-Order and Divergent Thinking

Abstract
The present investigation was conducted to evaluate the relationship of birth-order and creativity using a large sample of gifted and nongifted children (N = 234), five divergent thinking tests, and multivariate procedures to test birth-order and its interaction with number of siblings, gender, and age. Results indicated that only children had the highest divergent thinking test scores, followed by eldest, youngest, and finally middle children. Age also accounted for a significant amount of the variance in the scores, with older children having higher scores than younger children. Finally, the number of siblings was important: Children with more siblings had higher scores than children with one sibling.