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Early LDS Converts and the Migration to the Great Basin: The Use of Archival Data to Test Sulloway's Theory of Family Dynamics and Individual Personality

This is the continuation of a three-year project testing the personality theory put forth by Frank Sulloway which asserts that early-born children in a family tend to be orthodoxy absorbers, taking their cues from parental values and sanctions, and that later-born children tend to be heterodox, tending to deviate from the norms endorsed and modeled by their older siblings.

The theory is being tested on 350 early members of the LDS church who meet the following criteria:

1. They joined the LDS Church and lived in Nauvoo, Illinois during the period from 1841-1846.
2. They subsequently traveled to the Great Basin as part of the LDS Church's migration from Nauvoo to the West.
3. There is a document in existence for the individual at least ten pages in length and with sufficient detail to permit the application of most or all of the 158-item questionnaire styled after that used by Sulloway in his research.

The results of the project will lend further characterization to early members of the LDS Church and may prove instructive to contemporary parents and prospective parents regarding family dynamics in the development of children's personalities.