WIKIMEDIA, BrokenSphereSiblings sometimes squabble, but they might also be helping each other become more trustworthy, conscientious, and optimistic individuals, according to a report published today (Jan 10) in Science. The study, which looked at people born in Beijing just prior to or just after the introduction of the One-Child Policy, reveals a number of personality differences in adulthood most likely attributable to the presence or absence of siblings.
“They’ve identified this opportunity to establish a causal relationship between being a single child and how one behaves,” said Abigail Barr, a professor of economics at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, who was not involved in the study. “And they’ve used lab-type experiments to do the measurements. It’s really good science.”
The One-Child Policy, introduced in 1979, is a unique natural experiment, said Lisa Cameron, a professor of econometrics and business statistics at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, who led the study. But it’s also politically controversial. “In China, there is concern about the One-Child Policy generation,” said Cameron. “There have been calls for the abolition of the policy on the basis of [that generation having] poor social skills, but there’s been ...
