The main idea of the articles written by Forer and Wither is how one's birth order affects one's life and well-matching couples depending on thier birth orders. Forer says that one's nature characteristic is largely affected by one's birth order(only child, oldest child, middle child, or youngest child). And Wither wrote an article about well-matching couple, saying that there are certain combinations who are especially well matched for each other. Both articles argued that human is remarkably influenced by his or her birth order.
For the time being, I partially agree with their opinions, but it is never absolute.
Article says that oldest children are independent and responsible, middle children are introverted, and youngest children are adventurous and optimistic. Based on my experience in my family, these characteristics of each birth order are almost accurate. Because I'm the oldest child in my family and so I have to take charge of my younger sister and brother when there are no my parents, I am generally responsible for my duties and independent from my parents. Also, characteristics of middle children in these article is applicable for my younger sister. My younger sister likes to stay in house and has introspective tendency. Similary, my younger brother is adventurous in his everyday life and always keeps 'Don't worry!' attitude because total 4 family members, my(same with his) parents and his two older siblings take care of him.
But there are some uncomfortable facts for me. First, parents burden the first child for achievement in academic area or success in life because he or she is one of their children, NOT because they are first of their children. I think there are nothing special that my parents overburden me because I'm the first child in my family hierarchy. Second, article says that there are especially well-matching combinations of certain birth order but I disagree with this idea. Such as hometown, school, and fellows, there are so many kinds of factors which can determine one's lifestyle as one person lives.
By reading these articles and writing down my opinions about them, I realize that there are no 'absolute truth' for the realtion between one's overall life and birth order. Many oldest children are independent, but there can be dependent first children. Also, many youngest children have outgoing tendency, but there can be introverted youngest children. The reason for this diversity is that there are always other 'variables'. In conclusion, birth order is not the only one factor that decides one's characteristic or life.
Hi, I'm Seonghwan Cho from same class. I've enjoyed your writing, since your main idea is similar to mine. But the readings on the textbook do not say birth order is the only one factor. so I think it will be good to refer to the point of criticism more specifically. Overall, It was great. especially I like the actual example. :)
ReplyDeleteHi! I am Minjeong Lee from the same class.
ReplyDeleteI liked to read your essay. It's interesting to me because you and your brother's cases supports the theory of Forer's while mine's don't. I was persuaded that the theory can be accurate. I also love your points on essay that why you don't think the theory is absolute.
However, there's some points to make your essay better. Some of your sentences are incomplete. For example, some sentences start with the words because, and, but. Sentences start with those words cannot be independent sentence. If you modify some of these sentences, your essay would be greater :) !