Science says: the youngest in the family is the funniest

Look, this is a study about my heart. I am the youngest in my family and I find myself hi-larious. However, my six years older brother thinks the same about himself, which leads to quite a few discussions from time to time. Who is funnier? A mutual friend of ours once said it was me, no debate, and I still thrive on that. Now I can also shove this study under his nose, because it has been scientifically proven.

This study was conducted by YouGov in 2015. What I find striking about this study is that they asked the kids themselves: who is funnier? 46 percent of the youngest said it was them compared to 36 percent of the oldest. Honestly, not the most watertight study. They could have had both groups of kids do a stand-up show and then measure who got laughed at the hardest.

By the way, this study was conducted among 1782 people, who had to ‘rate’ their family members on certain character traits. Notably, the youngest in the family mostly indicated that they found themselves the funniest, but many of the oldest also gave this honor to the youngest. You could also conclude that the youngest in a family are often a bit arrogant or extremely self-confident, but that is a less pleasant outcome.

What other advantages does the youngest in the family have? We are often the favorites of our parents, we are more relaxed and easier to deal with. The oldest have a greater sense of responsibility, are more successful, more organized, and are more family-oriented. Hmm. Well, we have our humor.