Alfred Adler

Nicole is middle in her birth order!

Alfred Adler developed his own society, and established his own journal.  Adler called his approach individual psychology.  His approach on individual psychology was about parental influence on personality development, and the effects of birth order. Adler was the first person to emphasize the role of birth order to better shape personality.  To start off firstborn children are said to be different in personality from middle and last-born children.  

Firstborn children are most likely to have excessive attention from their parents and also pampered them.  Middle children don`t have the obligation of being pampered since their is an older sibling in their family.  Middle children are the highest achievers growing up.  Last born children have their problems as children.  However, they do get pampered by their family members for being last-born.  People also say that they get away with a lot growing up (Burger, 2011, p. 99).

     When reading this section in the text about birth order it made me think of how my siblings and I connect with each birth order the way Adler was describing them.  I have an older brother and sister and a younger brother.  It put me in the middle.  My brother who is the oldest and my sister who is the second oldest played different roles as Adler was describing them.  With my brother being the oldest he was not the one to get all of the attention or pampering.  He also was not a “problem child.”  He kept to himself a lot.  My older sister is seven years younger than my older brother.  Growing up my parents had a hard time with her.  She didn`t like school, or work.  She was always difficult for my parents when she was growing up.

            With me being the middle child, I was never pampered growing up.  Also, I never gave my parents a hard time like my sister did.  I wouldn’t consider myself a higher achiever, but I am trying to do what will be best for me when I am older.  My older brother and sister never went to college, but that is not for everyone.  My younger brother is in high school, and I would say that he does get pampered by everyone, and gets everything he asks for.  I also think that he gets away with a lot more then when I did when I was younger.
Strengths: focuses on individual psychology
weakness: parental influence on personality development