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  • Title: Supplementary analyses regarding Langevin, Langevin, and Curnoe's (2007) findings on fraternal birth order in homosexual men.
    Author: Blanchard R.
    Journal: Arch Sex Behav; 2007 Aug; 36(4):610-4; discussion 615-6. PubMed ID: 17186121.
    Abstract:
    A recent article by Langevin, Langevin, and Curnoe (2007) reported mixed results regarding the fraternal birth order effect, that is, the repeatedly observed finding that older brothers correlate with homosexuality in later-born males. Using a fraternal birth order index computed as older brothers minus younger brothers, Langevin et al. found that the "homoerotic" probands were born later among their brothers than were the "heteroerotic" probands in their full sample (N = 1194) and in their subsample over age 19 (N = 1122), but not in their subsample over age 31 (N = 698) or in their subsample with mothers over age 46 at the proband's birth (N = 727). The present writer concluded that the results obtained with the larger samples are more reliable, based on analyses demonstrating that (1) the larger samples are unlikely to be seriously affected by incomplete sibships, and (2) the smaller samples have poor statistical power. A separate analysis, based on an approximate reconstruction of Langevin et al.'s raw data, indicated that their heteroerotic probands reported a ratio of 104 older brothers per 100 older sisters, which is close to the normative population value of 106, whereas their homoerotic probands reported a ratio of 137, indicating a statistically significant excess of older brothers. These results suggest that Langevin et al.'s data showed significant evidence of a fraternal birth order effect and that their data were consistent with previous studies of this phenomenon.
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