Chapter 3    Adler: Individual Psychology99
and rejecting of the status quo. After all, they must find a way to earn their parent’s 
love that is different from their older sibling. So, “watch this, mom!” is likely to be 
the laterborn’s battle cry. Indeed, Sulloway’s historical analysis found that laterborn 
scientists were much more likely to accept radical and revolutionary new theories 
than firstborn scientists. The latter preferred conventional and already established 
theories. Other research has confirmed this finding in U.S. Supreme Court judges: 
firstborn U.S. judges are more rule-bound and conservative compared to laterborn 
judges (McGuire, 2015).
In summary, research supports the general conclusion that birth order seems to 
matter in some outcomes more than others and in some personality traits more than 
others. In broad terms, birth order appears to be most related to intellectual and edu -
cational/career outcomes and less to personality traits (except rebelliousness).
Early Recollections and Career Choice
Do early recollections predict career choice among young students? Adler believed 
that career choices reflect a person’s personality. “If ever I am called on for vocational 
guidance, I always ask the individual what he was interested in during his first years. 
His memories of this period show conclusively what he has trained himself for most 
continuously” (Adler, 1958, as quoted in Kasler & Nevo, 2005, p. 221). Researchers 
inspired by Adler therefore predicted that the kind of career one chooses as an adult 
is often reflected in one’s earliest recollections. 
In order to test this hypothesis, Jon Kasler and Ofra Nevo (2005) gathered 
earliest memories from 130 participants. These recollections were then coded by two 
judges on the kind of career the memory reflected. The recollections were classified 
using Holland’s (1973) vocational interest types, namely, Realistic, Investigative, 
Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional (see Table 3.3 for the description of 
these interest types). For example, an early recollection that reflects a social career 
interest later in life was: “I went to nursery school for the first time in my life at the 
age of four or five. I don’t remember my feelings that day but I went with my mother 
and the moment I arrived I met my first friend, a boy by the name of P. I remember 
a clear picture of P playing on the railings and somehow I joined him. I had fun all 
day” (Kasler & Nevo, 2005, p. 226). This early recollection centers around social 
interaction and relationships. An example of an early recollection that reflects a real -
istic career interest was: “When I was a little boy, I used to like to take things apart, 
especially electrical appliances. One day I wanted to find out what was inside the 
television, so I decided to take a knife and break it open. Because I was so small I 
didn’t have the strength and anyway my father caught me and yelled at me” (Kasler 
& Nevo, 2005, p. 225).
Career interest of participants was assessed by a self-report measure, the Self-
Directed Search (SDS) questionnaire (Holland, 1973). The SDS measures vocational 
interests, which were independently categorized into the same six Holland types that 
early recollections were placed into. The researchers therefore had early recollections 
and adult career interests both classified into the six career types, and they wanted to 
examine whether early recollections matched career interest. 
Kasler and Nevo (2005) found that early recollections in childhood did match 
career type as an adult, at least for the three career types that were well represented 
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