I'm Curious To Know If Social Science Has Found Answers To Why This Happens?

Question: I'm the second eldest of 5 children, aged 18 to 29. In observing each of my brothers and sisters, and myself, I am continually amazed by how different we are, especially since we have the same parents and home life. For instance, I've a keen interest in self development and wouldn't think twice about going to a therapist if I wanted to, but I'm the only one who thinks this way. And it's not because they are all well adjusted and I'm not, in fact I'm probably the one who needs counselling the least. I see this in other families as well, so I know it's not uncommon. I'm curious to know if social science has found answers to why this happens?

Answer (1) No two children in the one family have the same parents nor the same family life. That is also true for identical twins. The influence of children on their parents is often underestimated and this influence begins in utero. For example, sleep wake cycles, responsiveness to external sound and to being stroked and patted and the bias of each foetus' self-positioning in the pelvis are early indicators of physical preferences. These shape the environment of their pregnancy and influence the one into which they are born for example the mother after a 30 hour breach birth and the same person after a one hour labour. None of those environments are the same, not even a few minutes apart! You can never step into the same river twice. Those differences tend to continue and to expand according to the unique mix of temperaments governing what the toddler finds interesting to explore and what they ignore or reject. Pre-natal testing of foetuses by psychologists show there are a core of nine inherited temperaments.

Then, parents generally overestimate their influence on their children. Twins studies indicate that apart from genetics, the influence of parents on their children's adult behavior and attitudes is negligible. But peer group and sibling rivalry are powerful influences and throughout life. Inequality in the pecking order accounts for significant differences. Ask anyone which relative of theirs is best off and which worse off? Most people pick siblings. Disparities between siblings is the norm not the exception. The family is where much inequality is fostered and developed. First and last born get to spend time as an only child and this birth order makes a difference, whereas middle children on average are less likely to do as well socio-economically as the first and last because of the dividing up of resources.

Then of course there is perception. This shapes each child's reality and thus how each grows, influences and is influenced by the feedback and self-disclosure (or lack of it) from other members of the family. Each of us processes information through preferred sensory modes at different rates of comprehension and in different sequences. So for example no two witnesses ever experience the same accident - one hearing the crash and then imagining how it happened may later claim to have seen a sequence, which could not have occurred. Whilst another seeing the crash and then later arranges the sound sequence to fit their picture. We tend to have a preferred sense and a subordinate sense that we prefer in mapping our sensory world. Then language is used to describe the accident and this description both validates their unique experience and creates a sensory trace in the brain by which the experience will be re-created again like a flash back. Each person brings to that report different levels of verbal and memory abilities.

Apply all of the above to the complex sequence of intended and unintended choices that form a family and it is no wonder that the simplest chore is interpreted as completed or not in so many different ways, much to the ire of care-givers who think they are being as clear as a bell. Well that depends on whether they speak with one bell or two and whether their teaching style fits the learning style of the respective children.

Answer provided by Peter Fox, Clinical Psychologist

Answer (2) We are individuals and no two people experience the same thing identically. Each parent's contribution to the embryo involves nature selecting from an almost infinite number of choices from among the parents genetic material. Thus siblings share common and uncommon physical and non-physical features. So we are programmed for individuality even before birth. In life each successive experience is interpreted partly on the basis of our individual previous history and the divergence continues. If this were not the case, we may have a society where either everyone was open to counselling, or no-one was. And this is to say little of the very different events, challenges, individual personalities, social interactions and environments which impinge on us as individuals.

Answer provided by John Hunter, Counsellor

Answer (3) My colleagues above have answered much of your query, so just a quick response to your observation that you, as the most willing to see a therapist, are also possibly the one who 'needs' it the least...

I have come well and truly to the conclusion that my Therapeutic Coaching (psychology) clients are among the most well-adjusted people I know! They are much more proactive about making a good job of their lives than most people. This is far removed from the ubiquitous unawareness - the sense of being 'asleep at the wheel of life' - that we see so much around us.

A willingness to seek assistance and a thirst for input from other minds, are themselves signifiers of a key level of emotional/spiritual/intellectual development. Seeing the value of others' input and a general orientation toward learning and growing are, perhaps ironically, pre-requisites for choosing to employ a therapist, counsellor or coach.

I mean, no-one says "Ooh, Tiger Woods has a coach... What a wuss! Can't he do it on his own?!" It is our most elite achievers who perhaps are the only people who ALWAYS employ an expert facilitator. (!)

Answer provided by Stephanie Thompson, Psychologist