Some parents insist that they could never pick a favorite child — but a new study calls that into question.
A new analysis of 30 studies that collectively included almost 20,000 people revealed that parents are more likely to favor their daughters over their sons. The research also suggests that parents favored children who are perceived to be more agreeable and conscientious than their siblings. The studies included in the analysis were conducted only in North America and Western Europe, and they included predominantly white people, meaning that the results may not be applicable to people from other demographics.
In this context, favoring a child doesn’t necessarily mean that parents have “favorites” — rather, they choose to treat certain children in a more favorable way than their siblings, the researchers noted in the study, which was published Jan. 16 in the journal Psychological Bulletin
“It isn’t about the parents loving one child and hating the other,” said study co-author Alexander Jensen
Related: Middle children are more agreeable, humble and honest than siblings, new study suggests. The baby of the family would like a word.
It is important to understand these different parent-child interactions because children who receive more favorable treatment from their parents are more likely to have better mental health increased academic success healthier family relationships
“A study
“I hope parents will use our study as a catalyst to consider how they may treat their children differently, then work to make sure those differences are fair and understood by their children,” Jensen said.
Parents should be aware of how they treat their children to avoid any negative consequences later in life, say the authors of the new study. (Image credit: Fly View Productions via Getty Images)
In the new analysis, Jensen and colleagues looked at data from 30 scientific papers and 14 databases, which chronicled information on the family dynamics of 19,469 people. Around 67% of these individuals were from the U.S., while the rest were from Western Europe and Canada.
The researchers investigated how specific characteristics of a child correlated with how their parents treated them. This data had been collected in a variety of ways, including via interviews, surveys and at-home observations.
The children’s characteristics included factors such as when they were born relative to their siblings, their gender, and their temperament and personality traits, such as extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and neuroticism — the tendency to experience negative emotions. Parents’ preferential treatment was measured by how parents interacted with their children, how much money they spent on them or how much control they wielded over them, in regards to having strict or lenient rules.
The study only looked at correlations between child characteristics and differential parental treatment. Therefore, the findings alone cannot explain why parents seem to favor daughters and more-agreeable children over sons and less-aggreeable children, respectively.
That said, agreeable children are likely to be more willing to do what they’re asked, meaning that their parents may find it easier to manage them and thus respond more positively towards them, the study authors speculated
In the future, more research is needed to understand whether these parental preferences also exist in families from a more diverse range of cultures, as well as across different stages of life — for instance, looking at parents’ treatment of their kids in adulthood, too.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/nelly-baby2baby-event-11925-3061e33edbf4475ab6f3d394bed29808.jpg?w=150&resize=150,150&ssl=1 "Nelly says ‘it’s an honor’ to perform at Donald Trump’s inauguration")
