Birth order and risk taking in athletics: A meta-analysis and study of major league baseball

Personality and Social Psychology Review

Volumn 14, Issue 4, 2010, Pages 402-416

  Sulloway, Frank J ^a   Zweigenhaft, Richard L ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

^b GUILFORD COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

athletic ability; baseball; birth order; evolutionary psychology; meta analysis; risk taking

Indexed keywords

EID: 77957269324     PISSN: 10888683     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/1088868310361241     Document Type: Article

References (78)

1. References marked with an asterisk indicate studies included in the meta-analysis.
2. Abelson, R.P. (1985). A variance explanation paradox: When a little is a lot. Psychological Bulletin, 97, 129-133.
3. Alberts, C.L., & Landers, D.M. (1977). Birth order, motor performance, and maternal influence. The Research Quarterly, 48, 661-670.
4. Altus, W.D. (1966). Birth order and its sequelae. Science, 151, 44-49.
5. Aluja, A., García, Ó., & García, L. (2003). Relationships among extraversion, openness to experience, and sensation seeking. Personality and Individual Differences, 35, 671-680.
6. Benjamini, Y., & Hochberg, Y. (1995). Controlling the false discovery rate: A practical and powerful approach to multiple testing. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society B, 57, 289-300.
7. *Blankenbaker, H.J. (1973). Relation of interscholastic athletic participation to social class, sex of siblings, ordinal position, and family size. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park.
8. *Casher, B.B. (1977). Relationship between birth order and participation in dangerous sports. The Research Quarterly, 48, 33-40.
9. *Clark, R.D. (1982). Birth order and eminence: A study of elites in science, literature, sports, acting and business. International Review of Modern Sociology, 12, 273-289.
10. Costa, P.T., Jr., & McCrae, R.R. (1992). NEO PI-R professional manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.
11. Costa, P.T., Jr., Terracciano, A., & McCrae, R.R. (2001). Gender differences in personality traits across cultures: Robust and surprising findings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 322-331.
12. Courtiol, A., Raymond, M., & Faurie, C. (2009). Birth order affects behaviour in the investment game: Firstborns are less trustful and reciprocate less. Animal Behaviour, 78, 1405-1411.
13. Daly, M., & Wilson, M. (1988). Homicide. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
14. Darwin, C.R. (1859). On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for existence. London: John Murray.
15. Ermer, E., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (2008). Relative status regulates risky decision making about resources in men: Evidence for the co-evolution of motivation and cognition. Evolution and Human Behavior, 29, 106-118.
16. Ernst, C., & Angst, J. (1983). Birth order: Its influence on personality. New York/Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
17. Feingold, A. (1994). Gender differences in personality: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 116, 429-456.
18. Garamszegi, L.Z. (2006). Comparing effect sizes across variables: Generalization without the need for Bonferroni correction. Behavioral Ecology, 17, 682-687.
19. Goldstein, R. (2009, May 9). Dom DiMaggio, Red Sox All-Star and Joe's kid brother, dies at 92. The New York Times, p. D8.
20. Gould, D.R., & Landers, D.M. (1972). Dangerous sport participation: A replication of Nisbett's birth order findings. Paper presented at a meeting of the North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity, Houston, TX.
21. Healey, M.D., & Ellis, B.J. (2007). Birth order, conscientiousness, and openness to experience: Tests of the family-niche model of personality using a within-family methodology. Evolution and Human Behavior, 28, 55-59.
22. Hertwig, R., Davis, J.N., & Sulloway, F.J. (2002). Parental investment: How an equity motive can produce inequality. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 728-745.
23. Hunter, J.E., & Schmidt, F.L. (1990). Dichotomization of continuous variables: The implications for meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75, 334-349.
24. James, B. (1988). The Bill James baseball historical abstract. New York: Villard.
25. Janda, J.F., Hankin, F.M., & Wojtys, E.M. (1986). Softball injuries: Cost, cause and prevention. American Family Physician, 33, 143-144.
26. Jones, B. (2007, April 12). Upton brothers look to reverse trend. ESPN.com. Retrieved fromhttp://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?pagejones/070412.
27. Katsunori, A. (2001). Modified offensive earned-run average with steal effect for baseball. Applied Mathematics and Computation, 120, 279-288.
28. Keri, J. (2006). What's the matter with RBI? Vander Velden L.l statistics. In J. Keri (Ed.), Baseball between the numbers: Why everything you know about the game is wrong (pp. 1-13). New York: Basic Books.
29. Landers, D.M. (1979). Birth order in the family and sport participation. In M. L. Krotee (Ed.), Dimensions of sport sociology (pp. 140-167). Chicago: Leisure Press.
30. Lewis, M. (2003). Moneyball: The art of winning an unfair game. New York: Norton.
31. Lindert, P.H. (1977). Sibling position and achievement. The Journal of Human Resources, 12, 198-219.
32. *Longstreth, L.E. (1970). Birth order and avoidance of dangerous activities. Developmental Psychology, 2, 154.
33. Longstreth, L.E., Longstreth, G.V., Ramirez, C., & Fernandez, G. (1975). The ubiquity of big brother. Child Development, 46, 769-772.
34. *Manning, P. (1990). The relationship of self-concept, sex-role orientation, and locus of control between female athletes and non-athletes with further investigation of birth order, commitment, and influencing agent among the athletes. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, North Carolina State University, Raleigh.
35. Mock, D.W. (2004). More than kin and less than kind. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
36. *Nisbett, R.E. (1968). Birth order and participation in dangerous sports. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8, 351-353.
37. *Nixon, H.L. (1981). Birth order and preferences for risky sports among college students. Journal of Sport Behavior, 4, 12-23.
38. Paulhus, D.L., Trapnell, P.D., & Chen, D. (1999). Birth order and personality within families. Psychological Science, 10, 482-488.
39. *Perkin, M.R. (2003). Football position and atopy-both subject to the birth order effect? British Medical Journal, 327, 1473-1474.
40. Pillemer, D.B., & Light, R. (1984). Summing up: The science of reviewing research. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
41. *Procopio, B.L. (1975). Family background study of participants in high risk sports. Unpublished master's thesis, University of Maryland, College Park.
42. *Prunkl, P.P. (1969). Factors in predicting army aviator performance: Birth order and participation in dangerous sports and activities (Professional paper 13-69). Alexandria, VA: The George Washington University, National Technical Information Service and Human Resources Research Office.
43. Puffer, R.R., & Serrano, C.V. (1973). Patterns of mortality in childhood: Report of the Inter-American Investigation of Mortality in Childhood. Washington, DC: Pan American Health Organization. (PAHO Scientific Publication No. 262).
44. Reichler, J.L. (1985). The baseball encyclopedia: The complete and official record of major league baseball (6th ed.). New York: Macmillan.
45. Rodgers, J.L., Cleveland, H.H., van den Oord, E., & Rowe, D.C. (2000). Resolving the debate over birth order, family size, and intelligence. American Psychologist, 55, 599-612.
46. Rohde, P.A., Atzwanger, K., Butovskaya, M., Lampert, A., Mysterud, I., Sanchez-Andres, A., & Sulloway, F.J. (2003). Perceived parental favoritism, closeness to kin, and the rebel of the family: The effects of birth order and sex. Evolution and Human Behavior, 24, 261-276.
47. Rosenthal, R. (1987). Judgment studies: Design, analysis, and meta-analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
48. Rosenthal, R., & Rubin, D. (2003). requivalent: A simple effect size indicator. Psychological Methods, 8, 492-496.
49. *Salminen, S. (1990). Effect of birth order on girls' and boys' participation in dangerous sports. In Psychological aspects in top athletic and recreational sport: Proceedings (pp. 287-296). Lahti, Finland: Helsinki University, Lahti Research and Training Centre.
50. Salmon, C.A. (1998). The evocative nature of kin terminology in political rhetoric. Politics and the Life Sciences, 17, 51-57.
51. Salmon, C.A. (1999). On the impact of sex and birth order on contact with kin. Human Nature, 10, 183-97.
52. Salmon, C.A., & Daly, M. (1998). Birth order and familial sentiment: Middleborns are different. Evolution and Human Behavior, 19, 299-312.
53. Schachter, F.F., Gilutz, G., Shore, E., & Adler, M. (1978). Sibling deidentification judged by mothers: Cross-validation and developmental studies. Child Development, 49, 543-546.
54. Schachter, S. (1959). The psychology of affiliation. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
55. Seff, M.A., Gecas, V., & Frey, J.H. (1993). Birth order, self-concept, and participation in dangerous sports. Journal of Psychology, 127, 221-232.
56. Sendre, R.A., Keating, T.M., Hornak, J.E., & Newitt, P.A. (1994). Use of the Hollywood impact base and standard stationary base to reduce sliding and base-running injuries in baseball and softball. The American Journal of Sports Medicine, 22, 450-453.
57. *Shiposh, D.P. (1980). Sports preferences of male high school seniors in relation to social class, parental influence, and birth order. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Rutgers State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick.
58. Simonton, D.K. (2008). Gender differences in birth order and family size among 186 eminent psychologists. Journal of Psychology of Science and Technology, 1, 15-22.
59. Sohi, A.S., & Yusuff, K.B. (1991). Birth-order and participation in high and low dangerous sports among selected Nigerian elite athletes. Journal of Asian and African Studies, 26, 276-283.
60. Sulloway, F.J. (1995). Birth order and evolutionary psychology: A meta-analytic overview. Psychological Inquiry, 6, 75-80.
61. Sulloway, F.J. (1996). Born to rebel: Birth order, family dynamics, and creative lives. New York: Pantheon.
62. Sulloway, F.J. (2001). Birth order, sibling competition, and human behavior. In H. R. Holcomb, III (Ed.), Conceptual challenges in evolutionary psychology: Innovative research strategies (pp. 39-83). Dordrecht/Boston: Kluwer Academic.
63. Sulloway, F.J. (2002). Technical report on a vote-counting meta-analysis of the birth-order literature (1940-1999). Retrieved fromhttp://www.sulloway.org/metaanalysis.html.
64. Sulloway, F.J. (2007a). Birth order and intelligence. Science, 316, 1711-1712.
65. Sulloway, F.J. (2007b). Birth order and sibling competition. In R. Dunbar & L. Barrett (Eds.), Handbook of evolutionary psychology (pp. 297-311). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
66. Sulloway, F.J. (2009). Sources of scientific innovation: A meta-analytic approach (commentary on Simonton, 2009). Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4, 455-459.
67. Sulloway, F.J. (in press). Why siblings are like Darwin's finches: Birth order, parental investment, and adaptive divergence within the family. In D. M. Buss & P. H. Hawley (Eds.), The evolution of personality and individual differences. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
68. Sutton-Smith, B., & Rosenberg, B.G. (1970). The sibling. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
69. Theroux, N.L. (1993). Birth order and its relationship to academic achievement and selected personal traits. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.
70. Trivers, R.L. (1974). Parent-offspring conflict. American Zoologist, 14, 249-264.
71. *Vander Velden, L. (1971). Birth order, family size, male siblings, and athletic participation. Paper presented in the Research Section of the American Association of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation, Detroit, MI.
72. Wang, X.T., Kruger, D.J., & Wilke, A. (2009). Life history variables and risk-taking propensity. Evolution and Human Behavior, 30, 77-84.
73. Woolner, K., & Perry, D. (2006). Why are pitchers so unpredictable? In J. Keri (Ed.), Baseball between the numbers: Why everything you know about the game is wrong (pp. 48-57). New York: Basic Books.
74. *Yiannakis, A. (1976). Birth order and preference for dangerous sports among males. Research Quarterly, 47, 62-67.
75. Zajonc, R.B., & Sulloway, F.J. (2007). The confluence model: Birth order as a within-family or between-family dynamic? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 1187-1194.
76. Zardkoohi, A., Pustay, M.W., Cannella, A., & Holmes, M. (2009). Cognitive biases in decision making: Risk taking in major league baseball, 1985-1992. Retrieved from http://www.tamu.edu/perc/perc/Publication/0509.pdf.
77. Zuckerman, M. (1983). Sensation seeking and sports. Personality and Individual Differences, 4, 285-293.
78. Zweigenhaft, R.L. (1975). Birth order, approval-seeking and membership in Congress. Journal of Individual Psychology, 31, 205-210.