HARMONIOUS FAMILY: Violinist Gil Shaham and his sister, pianist Orli.
Venus and Serena. Owen and Luke. Rahm, Zeke, and Ari. Though examples of the super-sibling phenomenon abound in the press, they are not the norm. "Most of the research shows that siblings are very different from each other," says Judy Dunn, a British psychologist who has studied and written extensively about family relationships.
Siblings who do well in the same field are outliers, since most pursue separate paths to success. Finding a niche is a Darwinian adaptation, experts say, that harks back to a time when many children died in childhood. "Siblings differentiate themselves to compete for parental favor, which historically could impact survival," says Frank Sulloway, a visiting scholar at the University of California at Berkeley and author of Born to Rebel.
So what explains the subset of sibs who compete in big brother's or sister's arena? There are lots of reasons to follow an older sibling into an activity in which he shines. (It's rarer for an older child to pick up a kid sibling's passion, probably because as the novice, he'd perform less well and suffer a blow to his self-esteem.) The little sibling shares half of the older one's genes, so may possess many of the built-in qualities that contribute to a brother's success, like high intelligence, athletic prowess, or good looks. And, little sib was raised in the same environment, so she's probably learned similar values that could lead to success, like stick-to-it-iveness.
Further, a younger child's parents have already shown an interest in the chosen activity. "You don't give your kids opera lessons if you can't stand opera," says Laurie Kramer, a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. A younger kid can also benefit from the informal knowledge picked up from spending time with her sibling at home, or while being dragged along to tennis lessons, for example. And whether the siblings collaborate or compete during their formative years, the experience is likely to increase the skill level of both.
Once children leave the nest, sisters and brothers often turn into allies. Siblings may look for ways to use their shared talents to benefit each other and themselves, as they both compete in the world at large.
And yet, even when siblings stand side by side at the apex of their careers, the Darwinian impulse to differentiate flares up. Says Kramer: "Often, when from an outsider's perspective, it looks like siblings are doing the same thing, if you ask them about it, they will say, 'Oh, no, no, no. I'm a cardiologist who works in a clinic. My sibling is a cardiologist who does research.' They still see how they are dissimilar from each other."
SUSAN PINKER AND STEVEN PINKER: GREAT MINDS STUDYING THE MIND
FAMILY FEATS:
Susan is a developmental psychologist and journalist whose book The Sexual Paradox: Men, Women, and the Real Gender Gap received The William James Book Award from the American Psychological Association in 2009. Steven, who holds an endowed chair in the department of psychology at Harvard, has been named to the Time 100 list for his influence in the field of language and cognition. Recognized as one of the world's leading cognitive scientists, his best-selling books include The Language Instinct and The Stuff of Thought.
FROM THE MEMORY VAULT:
"Whenever Susan and I compare notes on our childhood memories, we contradict each other about the facts! A nice reminder to two psychologists on the unreliability and subjectivity of memory. My fondest memories are from when we were both adolescents. We were very close as teenagers, with many common friends, weekends spent hiking together or as a group, and the occasional crossover where her friend became my girlfriend or mine became her boyfriend." —Steven
"Steve is a research psychologist and I'm a clinical psychologist," Susan Pinker emphasizes. "It's true that we are under the broad umbrella of psychology, but if you compared our working lives over the past 25 years, they were really different until I started writing books. The end point is quite similar, but the journey to get there was quite different."
How did two siblings from Montreal become internationally influential psychologists? Their younger brother Rob, a high-ranking official in the Canadian government, is no slouch either. "We grew up in the same stew and were formed in the same stew. It's hard to pull it apart," says Susan. But they agreed to try.
"We picked our parents wisely," suggests Steven Pinker, whose newest book is The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. The Pinker siblings were raised in the English-speaking community of Montreal. Their father was a businessman, their mother stayed home when the children were young and later became a high school counselor. Their strongest memories from childhood involve the vigorous discussion every evening around the dinner table. "There was a lot of debate over the issues of the day," recalls Susan. "We were encouraged to ask questions and not accept information at face value."
"My mother has a very probing sense of inquiry," Susan says. "My father has his own emotional intelligence. He taught us a different style of looking at ideas. He was the driving force behind our ability to devour all the intellectual material that we needed—books, articles, magazines."
