Interesting Facts About Families And The Science Behind It

According to one study from the University of Texas at Arlington, which paired up male and female students for conversations, those with older siblings of the opposite sex were more comfortable in the conversation. The man who had older sisters were actually rated as more likeable by the women.

There is evidence that women who have older sisters might be more competitive than women who don’t. This was observed by a Japanese economist who looked at the behavior of high school and college students doing competitive activities. Her team also found that men who have older sisters tend to be less competitive than men who don’t.

Where you fall in the birth order may affect who you spend your time with, or even marry. According to a 2009 study, firstborns are more likely to be friends with other firstborns. The youngest child will associate mostly with younger siblings, and even only children prefer to spend their time with other only children.

Older siblings are also most likely to be the tallest of their parent’s children. There’s also evidence that their IQ’s might be a couple of points higher on average.

A 2001 study found that teenage moms have an impact on their siblings. There is an increase in the odds that her sister will also have a child during adolescence. Experts estimate this chances between two and six times higher than the overall population of women.

There is a psychological phenomenon known as sibling d-identification. This refers to a person who forms their own identity by making it deliberately different from the personality of their sibling. It is most commonly observed in siblings who are similar in age and sex.

A study on the relationships between grandparents and their grandchildren that lasted from 1985 to 2004, researchers found that people who reported feeling emotionally close to their grandparents were less likely to experience the symptoms of depression.

As of 2011, 1 in 10 American children lived with a grandparent, and that number has been fairly stable since the recession in 2007.

71 percent of these 7.7 million children are living in the grandparents’ house.

In 1940 about 25 percent of all households in the United States contained at least two adult generations. By 1980, that number had dropped to 12% percent, but in 2008 the figure was back up to 16. 1 percent.

Another big change in American families is the size. Today’s women have on average 1.9 children, which is way down from 3.7 children in 1961.

In 1990, a psychologist at McGill University followed up with a group of adults who had been part of a study at Yale University when they were just five-year-old. This included data on how the teachers and mothers describe their children’s family live. Researchers found that the best way to predict how empathetic and adult would be, was actually the amount of time they got to spend with their father at a young age. This research also concluded that that, regardless how affectionate parents were with their children, it made no difference in their empathy as adults.

There’s another thing that might encourage dads to spend more time with their kids. One 2010 study found that when fathers played with their babies, they experienced a boost of oxytocin hormone, often described as the love hormone.

Experts see activity increases in the parts of moms brains associated with empathy and anxiety. The Amygdala and gray matter in the brain gets more concentrated. More studies are taking place on this, which might better help us understand postpartum depression and how to treat it.

A 2012 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, contains data from the MRIs of 92 children and the researchers found that children who had nurturing supportive mothers had a hippocampus (center of emotion, memory, and the autonomic nervous system.) that was around 10 percent larger than those with less nurturing mom’s.

A 2013 study published in the journal Pediatrics, reported that kids whose pacifiers were cleaned in boiling water had higher rates of eczema, allergies and asthma than kids whose parents used their own mouths to clean the pacifiers. The American Dental Association also released a statement saying that this practice might increase the child’s chances of tooth decay

One study from Northwestern University looked at the BMI of over 10,000 fathers for a few years. During that time their BMI increased an average of 2.6 percent. Even dads who lived separately from their new baby gained on average 3.3 pounds. Men without kids lost 1.4 pounds during the same period in their lives.

While dads are busy eating, new moms are becoming dangerously exhausted. A 2014 study found that new mothers had medically significant sleepiness levels up to 18 weeks after giving birth. According to the lead researcher, this level of tiredness is a risk factor for people performing critical and dangerous tasks, of which motherhood is definitely one.

Interestingly on average new moms are actually sleeping roughly the same amount as normal. It’s just that the sleep is extremely disturbed so they aren’t really benefiting much from it.

A report published in 2013 surveyed one thousand mothers from the UK, and found that moms get asked approximately 300 questions every single day.

Four year old girls are the biggest question askers, averaging 390 per day. My two-year-old daughter definitely asks 390 questions a day, 280 of them asking “Can we listen to Let It Go?”.

There are interesting discrepancies in the memories of mothers who were single, versus when they had their child.

A study surveyed around 5,000 moms between the late nineties and early two thousands, and then the researchers spoke with them again a year later. Only two-thirds of the single moms remembered that they were single at the time they gave birth. The other third claimed that they were cohabitating with someone or married at the time. It’s amazing at just how incredibly unreliable the human memory can be.

According to a 2010 study from Keene State College, which surveyed around 300 students, found that the children of helicopter parents are often more anxious and neurotic themselves. They’re also less open to new experiences.

One study of New York women who were pregnant during the September 11th attacks found, found that their babies actually had lower levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. Low cortisol is one of the factors doctors use to diagnose PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).

Boys who experienced secure attachment to their parents, meaning they have a consistent and reliable relationship, are less likely to act out. Young boys who have a more insecure attachment, tend to be more aggressive and disobedient. For girls, this often manifests into anxiety rather than physical violence.

According to the National Opinion Research Center, getting married boosts Americans happiness by about 18 percent. As they start having kids, those kids remove about 1.3 percent from the likelihood that parents will call themselves ‘very happy’.

Siblings may be more likely to resist tobacco. In a 2003 study at the University of Oklahoma, researchers surveyed over 9,500 young smokers and found that kids typically encountered smoking thanks to an older siblings, but the younger sibling was more likely to avoid smoking.

One recent study looked at the range of types of sibling relationships and found that 85 percent of them were declared somewhere between repairable and excellent.

Some experts that study siblings have found it sisters provide emotional security to their siblings. In 1977, one study examined adult siblings and found that men who had sisters were more emotionally secure than those who didn’t have them, and women who had sisters were more socially secure.