The author asserts that birth order has an effect on hormonal stress response. In the letter, the author presents that firstborn Rhesus monkeys are associated with twice the level of cortisol when encountering unfamiliar stimuli, that first time Rhesus mothers are associated with elevated cortisol than more experienced mothers, and that stimulated firstborn humans are also associated with elevated cortisol levels compared to younger siblings.
First, the author claims to be examining the effect of birth order on cortisol level, but confounds the effect of social experience and biological birth order. In the presented evidence, it is suggested that first time Rhesus mothers exhibit elevated stress in response to pregnancy compared to more experienced mothers. Birth order is not a factor in this particular case. Rather, it follows that inexperienced mothers are more distressed by the experience of pregnancy than more experienced ones.
One possible explanation is that inexperienced mothers are more likely to exhibits higher levels of cortisol and affect their unborn offspring's tolerance and regulation of their own cortisol level. During a first time pregnancy, the offspring is exposed to greater levels of stress and conditions an elevated stress response later in life. Whereas as the mother becomes more experienced with pregnancy her cortisol levels become more regulated and the effect is reduced.
Another possible explanation is that, behaviorally, unfamiliar situations regardless of birth order are greater stressors to inexperienced subjects--Rhesus monkey and human alike. That is, firstborn siblings have limited interaction with other social agents and are therefore experience a greater level of stress. In contrast, because younger siblings have older siblings to model behavior, they have access to a greater behavioral and social repertoire and find it easier to cope by having exposure to more models of behavior.
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Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 12 15
No. of Words: 293 350
No. of Characters: 1627 1500
No. of Different Words: 136 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.137 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.553 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.776 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 143 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 102 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 78 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.417 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.484 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.583 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.392 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.604 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.091 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 86, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...effect of birth order on cortisol level, but confounds the effect of social exper...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, if, so, therefore, whereas, in contrast
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 15.0 19.6327345309 76% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 0.0 12.9520958084 0% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 17.0 28.8173652695 59% => OK
Preposition: 37.0 55.5748502994 67% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1669.0 2260.96107784 74% => OK
No of words: 292.0 441.139720559 66% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.71575342466 5.12650576532 111% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.13376432452 4.56307096286 91% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.87373255654 2.78398813304 103% => OK
Unique words: 144.0 204.123752495 71% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.493150684932 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 529.2 705.55239521 75% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.8 1.59920159681 113% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 12.0 19.7664670659 61% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 75.8538433803 57.8364921388 131% => OK
Chars per sentence: 139.083333333 119.503703932 116% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.3333333333 23.324526521 104% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.75 5.70786347227 83% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 3.0 8.20758483034 37% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 6.88822355289 87% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.137734226118 0.218282227539 63% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.063585573512 0.0743258471296 86% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0480409988563 0.0701772020484 68% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0926545580663 0.128457276422 72% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0363361954905 0.0628817314937 58% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.7 14.3799401198 123% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 30.2 48.3550499002 62% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.0 12.197005988 123% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 16.19 12.5979740519 129% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.64 8.32208582834 116% => OK
difficult_words: 89.0 98.500998004 90% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.5 12.3882235529 125% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.