Delinquency and Primogeniture1
- Author:
Clairette P. Armstrong, Ph.D.
Psychologist, Children’s Court, New YorJc City This study of delinquency and primogeniture is an investigation of the frequency of first-born children among groups of delinquent boys aged 8 to 15 years, examined in the clinic of the Children’s Court of New York City.
To cope with the problem of juvenile delinquency, to locate specific, deleterious factors, the total gestalt of the delinquent child must be dissected and closely scrutinized. Certain factors may be the determining cause of delinquency with one child, other factors with another. Such factors occur in combination with others. Since delinquencies are various, several different types are studied from the viewpoint of one possibly determining factor in certain types of delinquency?primogeniture.
The groups are: first, 215 boys arraigned for various offenses; second, 649 boys who in legal parlance, without just cause and without the consent of parents, guardian or other custodian, desert home or place of abode; third, 60 boys, “incorrigible, ungovernable, habitually disobedient and beyond the control of parents.” These two offenses against the home, disobedience and home-deserting, prior to 1928 were reckoned together in Court reports and furnished between 50 per cent and 70 per cent of clinic cases. The fourth and last group consists of 67 boys charged with forcible entry into premises to steal or damage property, comprising about 2 per cent of cases.
Only children are found in each group. They are 7 per cent of the assorted delinquents, 12 per cent of the home-deserters, 12 per cent of the ungovernables and 1 per cent of the boys charged with forcible entry.
Table I demonstrates ordinal position in the fraternity and reliability of primogeniture. A regular numerical progression is followed by the 200 assorted delinquents, after the first and secondborn whose number is identical, 28 per cent of the group, then 19 i Eead at the annual meeting of the Association of Consulting Psychologists, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, May 6, 1933. per cent for third-born, etc. The 568 home-deserters form a regular numerical progression, with 33 per cent first-born, 27 per cent second, 16 per cent third, etc. The 53 ungovernables also are fairly regular with the majority first-born, next second, and so on to fourth where there are fewer than fifth. The 66 accused of forcible entry follow no regular order, the majority being secondborn then first, etc. Ordinal position irrespective of family size, theoretically does show a trend but it is not a reliable method of judging primogeniture. Normal expectancy of primogeniture would be, in an unselected group, one in two from the two-child family, one in three in the three-child family, etc. Therefore if ordinal position plays a role with delinquents, over half the culprits from two-child families would be expected to be oldest, over a third from three-child families, etc.
“With the assorted delinquents theoretical expectancy of primogeniture is surpassed2 only in the two, four, and five-child families, although the coefficients are too small to insure reliability.3 The home-deserters are more often first-born than normal expectancy demands up to families of seven children. However it is only in the three-child family that reliability is insured. That the chances of primogeniture are many is shown in two and five-child families, and but few in four and six-child families.
With the other groups though the number of cases is small, trends are indicated. With the ungovernables, theoretical expectancy of first-born is actually surpassed only in two, four, and fivechild families, and reliability is established only in the four-child family. In the two-child family there is strong possibility of primogeniture and slight possibility in the five-child. In the three and six-child families there are fewer children than normal expectancy. With the forcible entry group, only in the three and seven-child families are there more children than theoretical expectancy, but reliability is slight.
To sum up: It is only in offenses against the home that there is reliability of primogeniture of delinquents, with the home-deserters in the three-child and with the ungovernables in the four-child family. There is strong indication of primogeniture in both groups in the two-child family; with the home-deserters in the five-child family and some possibility in the four and six-child families ; and 2K. J. Holzinger, Statistical Methods for Students in Education, p. 248 s H. E. Garrett, Statistics in Psychology and Education, p. 136. with the ungovernables in the five-child family. Boys charged with forcible entry show a slight tendency to be oldest in the three and seven-child families, and assorted delinquents in the two, four, and five-child families.
C. Rosenow4 found reliability of primogeniture of problem children in the two-child family but not definitely borne out in the three-child family. He concluded that first-born children from Table I Rank Order per Family Size Number of Children in Family Rank Order D ? diff. Assorted Delinquents 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 15 22 8 14 8 2 1 1 16 11 11 11 5 13 6 5 6 5 1 15 38 32 38 32 22 12 12 6 5 3 2.54 fewer 2.5 1.04 fewer Total per cent 15+56 28 55 27.5 37 18.5 17 8.5 16 10 5 5 2.5 215 (200) 100 Home Deserters 9 10 11 12 13 81 52 55 28 29 17 4 4 37 24 31 26 19 8 4 3 3 16 23 20 15 7 5 3 20 11 15 10 2 4 14 7 6 9 2 81 89 95 102 100 77 43 31 16 8 4 2 1 2.47 7.55 .84 3.33 1.18 fewer .11 fewer Total per cent 81 + 189 33.3 155 27.3 89 15.7 63 11.1 39 6.9 19 3.3 1.4 6 1.0 649 (568) 100
4 C. Rosenow, Incidence of First-born among Problem Children, Fed. Sem. and J. of Genet. Psychol., 1930, 37, 145?151.
Table I?Continued. Number of Children in Family Rank Order D a diff. Ungovernable 7 11 12 10 10 7 2 1 3.13 fewer 4.76 1.17 fewer Total per cent 7+22 41.5 13 24.5 10 18.9 3 5.7 4 7.5 1 1.9 60 (53) 100 Forcible Entry 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Total per cent 1 + 14 21.2 19 28.8 14 21.2 6 9.1 4 6.1 5 7.6 2 3.0 2 3.0 1 9 6 8 9 10 7 7 5 1 3 0 1 67 (66) 100 1.3 1.08
small families present problems to child guidance clinics more frequently than other children from such families.
Wile and Noetzel5 state the case as follows: 4’ Granting that in our group of explosive and withdrawn children there is a larger number of older children one is not able to state that their condition is due entirely to the fact of being first children. One cannot assume that it is due to the fact that they are the children upon whom the parents gain their first experience. Nor can it be stated dogmatically that the difficulties which brought them to the clinic s I. S. Wile and Elinor Noetzel, A Study of Birth Order and Behavior J. Soc. Psychol., 1931, 7, 52-71. ‘
would not have arisen had they been middle children… . Our studies suggest however that ordinal position is not an especiallysignificant factor in fixing a personality type or in establishing definite forms of difficulty in adjustment or in determining dominant attitudes in human relations.’’ Even tho oldest children seem to predominate in the Wile study, lack of statistical analysis by differential formula whereby the reliability of primogeniture may be ascertained, is unfortunate. Likewise it might be pointed out that obviously no one factor can fix a personality type, a delinquent; it is always one factor in relation to another, a concomitancy of factors that mold the delinquent, with certain factors having more weight than others.
It may be concluded that there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate not only a reliability of primogeniture in certain size families but also a tendency more or less marked in other size families, among delinquents arraigned in the Children’s Court of New York City on charges involving offenses against the home, however it may be explained. The possibilities of jealousy of younger siblings, great responsibility being thrust upon oldest children in families of very low economic status, and even exploitation of the oldest which may well be resented, all enter into the problem. It is the oldest boy in a specific setting who is apt to revolt against the authority of the home.
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