The DOI matches its Crossref record; 26 of the 26 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Biological versus nonbiological older brothers and men’s sexual orientation
Open accessAbstract
The most consistent biodemographic correlate of sexual orientation in men is the number of older brothers (fraternal birth order). The mechanism underlying this effect remains unknown. In this article, I provide a direct test pitting prenatal against postnatal (e.g., social/rearing) mechanisms. Four samples of homosexual and heterosexual men (total n = 944), including one sample of men raised in nonbiological and blended families (e.g., raised with half- or step-siblings or as adoptees) were studied. Only biological older brothers, and not any other sibling characteristic, including nonbiological older brothers, predicted men’s sexual orientation, regardless of the amount of time reared with these siblings. These results strongly suggest a prenatal origin to the fraternal birth-order effect.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“The conclusions appear to be based on a comparison of significance (for the coefficient of the number of older brothers) with nonsignificance (for the other coefficients), even though the differences between the coefficients do not appear to be statistically significant.”
From The Difference Between “Significant” and “Not Significant” is not Itself Statistically Significant (2006) · cites this paper as Bogaert (2006)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
A Difference in Hypothalamic Structure Between Heterosexual and Homosexual Men
LeVay, S. (1991) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1887219 · Cited by 1,108
A Linkage Between DNA Markers on the X Chromosome and Male Sexual Orientation
Hamer, D. H., Hu, S., Magnuson, V. L., Hu, N., & Pattatucci, A. M. L. (1993) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.8332896 · Cited by 871
Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics, and Creative Lives
Freese, J., Powell, B., & Sulloway, F. J. (1998) · Contemporary Sociology · doi:10.2307/2654718 · Cited by 631
Finger-length ratios and sexual orientation
Williams, T. J., Pepitone, M. E., Christensen, S. E., Cooke, B. M., Huberman, A. D., Breedlove, N. J., Breedlove, T. J., Jordan, C. L., & Breedlove, S. M. (2000) · Nature · doi:10.1038/35006555 · Cited by 582
Bailey, J. M., Dunne, M. P., & Martin, N. G. (2000) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037//0022-3514.78.3.524 · Cited by 538
Maternal Stress Alters Plasma Testosterone in Fetal Males
Ward, I. L., & Weisz, J. (1980) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.7188648 · Cited by 369
Exotic becomes erotic: A developmental theory of sexual orientation.
Bem, D. J. (1996) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.103.2.320 · Cited by 333
Neurohormonal functioning and sexual orientation: A theory of homosexuality-heterosexuality.
Ellis, L., & Ames, M. A. (1987) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037//0033-2909.101.2.233 · Cited by 305
Homosexuality in men and number of older brothers
(1996) · American Journal of Psychiatry · doi:10.1176/ajp.153.1.27 · Cited by 284
Camperio-Ciani, A., Corna, F., & Capiluppi, C. (2004) · Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rspb.2004.2872 · Cited by 275
An immunoreactive theory of selective male affliction
Gualtieri, T., & Hicks, R. E. (1985) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x00001023 · Cited by 243
Born to rebel: Birth order, family dynamics, and creative lives
Mysterud, I. (1997) · Endeavour · doi:10.1016/s0160-9327(97)84886-7 · Cited by 226
Sexual Orientation in a U.S. National Sample of Twin and Nontwin Sibling Pairs
Kendler, K. S., Thornton, L. M., Gilman, S. E., & Kessler, R. C. (2000) · American Journal of Psychiatry · doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.157.11.1843 · Cited by 219
Birth Order and Sibling Sex Ratio in Homosexual versus Heterosexual Males and Females
Blanchard, R. (1997) · Annual Review of Sex Research · doi:10.1080/10532528.1997.10559918 · Cited by 201
The ratio of 2nd to 4th digit length and male homosexuality
Robinson, S. (2000) · Evolution and Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/s1090-5138(00)00052-0 · Cited by 191
Fraternal Birth Order and the Maternal Immune Hypothesis of Male Homosexuality
Blanchard, R. (2001) · Hormones and Behavior · doi:10.1006/hbeh.2001.1681 · Cited by 156
H-Y Antigen and Homosexuality in Men
Blanchard, R., & Klassen, P. E. (1997) · Journal of Theoretical Biology · doi:10.1006/jtbi.1996.0315 · Cited by 153
Biodemographic comparisons of homosexual and heterosexual men in the kinsey interview data
Blanchard, R., & Bogaert, A. F. (1996) · Archives of Sexual Behavior · doi:10.1007/bf02437839 · Cited by 117
Self-citationBirth order and ratio of brothers to sisters in transsexuals
Green, R. (2000) · Psychological Medicine · doi:10.1017/s0033291799001932 · Cited by 95
Ellis, L., & Cole-Harding, S. (2001) · Physiology & Behavior · doi:10.1016/s0031-9384(01)00564-9 · Cited by 92
Blanchard, R., & Bogaert, A. F. (2004) · American Journal of Human Biology · doi:10.1002/ajhb.20006 · Cited by 71
Self-citationBogaert, A. F. (2003) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037//0022-3514.84.3.644 · Cited by 60
Self-citationNeuroendocrine Mechanisms and the Aetiology of Male and Female Homosexuality
MacCulloch, M. J., & Waddington, J. L. (1981) · The British Journal of Psychiatry · doi:10.1192/bjp.139.4.341 · Cited by 56
Birth order and sexual orientation in women.
Bogaert, A. F. (1997) · Behavioral Neuroscience · doi:10.1037//0735-7044.111.6.1395 · Cited by 50
Self-citationBlanchard, R., & Bogaert, A. F. (1997) · Behavior Genetics · doi:10.1023/a:1025663325313 · Cited by 45
Self-citationDissociation in patients with borderline personality disorder
Paris, J., & Zweig-Frank, H. (1997) · American Journal of Psychiatry · doi:10.1176/ajp.154.1.137 · Cited by 18
Research works printed but not linked: 6
- 10.1037/0022-3514.78.3.524 · DOI · Paper page
- 10.1037/0022-3514.84.3.644 · DOI
- R. Blanchard Annu. Rev. Sex Res. 8, 27–67 (1997).
- 10.1037/0735-7044.111.6.1395 · DOI
- 10.1037/0033-2909.101.2.233 · DOI · Paper page
- I. L. Ward Handbook of Behavioral Neurobiology: Sexual Differentiation, eds A. A. Gerail, H. Moltz, I. L. Ward (Plenum, New York, 1992).
Cited by
The Difference Between “Significant” and “Not Significant” is not Itself Statistically Significant
Gelman, A., & Stern, H. (2006) · The American Statistician · doi:10.1198/000313006x152649 · Cited by 1,407
Neurotoxic autoantibodies mediate congenital cortical impairment of offspring in maternal lupus
Lee, J. Y., Huerta, P. T., Zhang, J., Kowal, C., Bertini, E., Volpe, B. T., & Diamond, B. (2009) · Nature Medicine · doi:10.1038/nm.1892 · Cited by 163
Metadata
- Authors
- Bogaert, A. F.
- Affiliations
- Brock University (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Bogaert, Anthony F.
- ORCID
- Bogaert, Anthony F.
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2006-07-11
- Volume
- 103
- Issue
- 28
- Pages
- 10771-10774
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC1502306
- OpenAlex
- W2137113462
- Cited by
- 238
- References
- 26
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 76 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 11 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 10 · 2013: 13 · 2012: 5
- FWCI
- 4.22
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Johns Hopkins University
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism › Sexual Differentiation and Disorders
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender and Feminist Studies
- Keywords
- sexual orientation, older brothers, biological siblings, adopted children, stepfamilies, prenatal origin, gay men, heterosexual men
- MeSH terms
- Adoption, Birth Order, Female, Humans, Male, Predictive Value of Tests, Sexual Behavior, Homosexuality, Male, Siblings
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.