This study investigated deidentification in relationship to self-ratings, achievement test performance, and grade point average offirst-born and second-born siblings. A sample of 47 adolescent sibling pairs from two-child families rated self and sibling on 13 semantic differential concepts. Results indicated that both first-born and second-born adolescents who judged themselves to be higher achieving that their siblings had higher self-definitions on evaluative and activity scales than did those who judged themselves equally or lower achieving. On achievement measures, however, first-borns who rated themselves as higher achieving than their sibling tended to have significantly higher achievement test scores and higher grade point averages than did other groups, but second-borns tended to have higher scores on these measures when they judged themselves to be equally achieving. These findings were interpreted as support for social comparison theory and as suggesting that intellectual performance may be more salient to first-borns than to second-borns.
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