School of psychology assessment cover sheet
student name (block capitals)
student id number
module code
PS1020
assessment type
Essay
submission deadline
date submitted
Module Leader name
Gayle Brewer
it is your responsibility to ensure that your work is uploaded to turnitin prior to the deadline.
‘Only children’ are disadvantaged compared to children with siblings. Discuss.
This essay will look at and discuss how being and ‘only child’ can be an advantage or a disadvantage to a child’s development. It will take in to account a number of different studies that have looked closely at the development of both ‘only children’ and of those with siblings. This is essay will focus on the differences between ‘only children’ and children with siblings when looking at emotional and behavioural qualities, the physical development in sport and the effect that being an only child has on an individual in later life.
Firstly this essay will look at whether ‘only children’ display any difference in emotional and behavioural qualities to their counterparts with siblings. There have been many studies carried out to see if ‘only children’ exhibited different emotional and behavioural patterns to children with siblings. Falbo (1992) looked in to this, in an attempt to find out whether ‘only children’ where as emotionally stable as those children that had siblings. Falbo conducted a large number of studies and when collating the results found that only children scored higher than others on achievement, motivation and self-esteem. She also concluded that only children did not stand out from the crowd when looking at areas such as generosity, autonomy, anxiety and popularity. It was also found that only children were no more likely than others to get in to trouble at school. Another observation made by Falbo was that the home life of an only child was more likely to encourage intellectual activities, due to having an increased amount of