h study agreed for the most part with previous studies. The birth order of the child greatly effected the way parents “rated them” and determined what they expected from the children. For example, parents of more than one child, tended to rate first-borns better than last-borns, and therefore (as shown in another study) expected more from them. They also saw the eldest child as the least spoiled. There are also other factors besides birth order though, that contribute to parents’ expectations of children, such as the ages of the children. A high consistency was found between parents’ description of their expectations of their children to expectations from hypothetical children of different birth order, however it was “less pronounced” in the hypothetical situation. The results of this research have shown that birth order is another factor that needs to be taken into consideration when looking at parents’ expectations of their children, but the extent to which the child’s development is effected, depends on the parents’ treatment of them, and that in turn depends on the attributions or expectations parents give them. I think that the conceptualization and study design were done well, but a few things could be added. One thing I thought was good was that the researcher had two separate groups: the hypothetical attributes for children and the parents’ own children. I thought however, that a bigger and more diverse sample should be chosen. There were also many more women parents involved in this study than men. My biggest critique on the study design was that on the questionnaire, there were only five attribution factors. Is five really enough to base parents’ expectations of children upon? In my opinion, more attributes should be added. The mean ages of the parents was 30.75. Older parents should have been included as well because they would bring a dif...
