Psychology Commons^™

Identity Selection And The Social Construction Of Birthdays, Brett Pelham, Tracy Dehart, Mitsuru Shimizu, Curtis D. Hardin, H. Anna Han, William Von Hippel

Psychology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

We argue that rather than being a wholly random event, birthdays are sometimes selected by parents. We further argue that such effects have changed over time and are the result of important psychological processes. Long ago, U.S. American parents greatly overclaimed holidays as their children's birthdays. These effects were larger for more important holidays, and they grew smaller as births moved to hospitals and became officially documented. These effects were exaggerated for ethnic groups that deeply valued specific holidays. Parents also overclaimed well-liked calendar days and avoided disliked calendar days as their children's birthdays. However, after birthday selection effects virtually …