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Born to Rebel and Its Critics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

Frank J. Sulloway
Frank J. Sulloway*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley, USA
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Abstract

Frederic Townsend's critique of Born to Rebel (Sulloway, 1996) is based on an unfortunate pattern of misrepresentation and faulty empirical methods. First, the historical data in Born to Rebel are neither unrepresentative nor undisclosed. They were compiled with the help of 110 expert raters, who validated their representative nature and operationalized the principal outcome measures. Second, birth order is moderately associated with political radicalism, especially in real-life and within-family studies. Third, the meta-analytic data are statistically compelling for various behavioral attributes, although effect sizes are generally modest. Fourth, recent studies using large samples and anchored scales demonstrate the influence of birth order on a wide variety of personality traits, especially in within-family comparisons. In addition, the relationship between birth order and openness to radical innovation—highlighted in Born to Rebel—has been replicated by other researchers. Because Townsend fails to employ formal methods of hypothesis testing—relying instead on selected anecdotal examples, adversarial tactics, and an inadequate grasp of statistical principles—he has drawn numerous false conclusions about the influence of birth order.

Type
Roundtable Response
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , September 2000 , pp. 181 - 202
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

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