While I was reading the story of Gordie being 'Invisible man' in his family, I remembered the article about the 'science' of favoritism. It is from TIME, and its cover looks like this:
According to Jeffrey Kluger, there are some factors that affect the 'list' in people's mind. Like these factors affected many parents' favor, they also influenced Gordie's parents to like Dennis better.
1. More Successful
According to Kluger, parents' preference starts from the parents' survival needs: the biologically narcissistic act of replicating themselves through succeeding generations. This makes Mom and Dad to prefer their bigger, healthier offspring, as that kid will be more successful in reproduction, and get more of the family's genes into the next generation.
The most conspicuous sign of fitness is physical appearance. Of course there isn't a parent who would admit to favoring a beautiful child over a less beautiful one, but most scientists agree that this heuristic, that things that are attractive are healthy and good and smart, is innate for humans.
In 'The body', we can see the sign that Dennis, who is smarter, healthier, and more attractive than Gordie, is preferred to his parents. Dennis was in the baseball league and he graduated with honors from Castle Rock High School while Gordie was hanging out with 'a theif and two feebs', in terms of Gordie's father.
2. Firstborn
The firstborns are often the family's favorite, and the reason is one corporations understand well: the rule of sunk costs. The more effort you've made developing a product, the more committed you are to seeing it come to fruition. Parents pour a lot of 'capital' into firstborns. And like Dennis was, the oldest in most familites have historically been the tallest and strongest, thanks to the fact that at the beginning of their lives, they don't have to share food stores with other kids.
(In the case of mothers, the firstborn son has the highest probability in being 'favorite'.)
In the article, it says, "Even if your kids know you have a favorite, the effort it takes to pretend it's not so can itself be an act of love." It is so true. Although I feel bad about Gordie, but anyway, it is parents' role to love their kids 'equally', at least try.
