Personality of ‘Only Children’ and ‘Children with a Sibling’

Nowadays in India, a social and family structure is changing rapidly. Society is shifting from its traditional joint family structure to nuclear families. In last few years, it is observed that couples prefer to keep their family smaller and many of them even prefer to have only one child. The current study tries to explore the effect of being single or having a sibling on the personality of children. Following the OCEAN model of personality, NEO-FFI was administered on 200 college students. 50 girls and 50 boys without a sibling and 50 girls and 50 boys with one sibling were selected from senior colleges in Pune city. By using ‘t’ test the mean differences were statistically computed. Results showed that there are no significant differences between only children and children with a sibling on all five factors of personality (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism).