It's Not Just Exclusive Love That Spoils Them, They Have Different Brain Structures Too.(Sarah Young)
A study has found that children who grow up without sibling are likely to have a different brain structure than those who do.Children without siblings are often branded selfish and spoiled compared to peers who have brothers and sisters.
But a new study by South West University in Chongqing,China,has revealed that the different could be down to more than just behaviours.
While previous studies have focused on the difference in conduct,cognitive function and personality traits between those with and without siblings,this study's aim was to find out if the differences had a neural basis.Turns out,it did.
Studying 250 university students,of which around half were only children,researchers scanned their brains while also testing their personality, creativity and intelligence. Verifying previous findings,the tests showed that only children outperformed those with siblings on creativity but consistently scored lower on "agreeable" personality traits.The scans also demonstrated that the parts of the brain associated with the development of these traits were indeed structurally different in the two.
The only children,who performed higher on a creativity,actually showed a higher volume of gray matters in the parietal lobe-a part of the brain associated with mental flexibility and imagination.
Meanwhile,they were found to have less gray matter in the medial prefrontal cortex-a part of the brain known to be involved in thinking about the self in relation to others.This shows that different family environment -growing up with or without siblings-does affect children's structural brain development, researchers claimed.
They also pointed out that while previous studies have already shown that only children tend to exhibit higher intelligence,the sole attention of parents and grandparents can result in what they call "undesirable" personality traits like dependency,selfishness and social ineptitude.