Birth Order (I) : Birth Order and Neurosis (1)

Abstract

It has been argued by many clinical psychiatrists that the incidence of neurosis is related to birth order. It has been reported that when a large sample of neurotic patients was analysed with respect to birth order, there was an overrpresentation of only-child, first-born and last-born. Reviewing previously published data, however, it was found that most statistical procedures by which they attempted to demonstrate the effect of birth order, erred in sampling and statistical inference. They disregarded the overrepresentation of those siblings in the population from which the sample is taken. This paper investigates the distribution of birth order in 455 neurotic patients. These data were collected by the author and analysed with the chisquare criterion. It was found that there is no overrepresentation of onlychild, first-bord and last-born in the neurotic sample.