Sibling Dynamics in Childhood and Adolescence and Their Implications for Youths' Adjustment
Open Access
- Author:
- Solmeyer, Anna Ruth
- Graduate Program:
- Human Development and Family Studies
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- February 14, 2012
- Committee Members:
- Susan Marie Mc Hale, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
J Douglas Coatsworth, Committee Member
Mark E Feinberg, Committee Member
D Wayne Osgood, Committee Member - Keywords:
- Siblings
adolescence
family dynamics - Abstract:
- Three studies examined sibling dynamics and their links with adjustment in childhood and adolescence. Study 1 examined the associations between sibling relationship qualities and youths’ reports of risky behaviors in a sample of adolescents aged 11 to 20. Participants were mothers, fathers, and sibling dyads from 393 families who were interviewed annually for 3, 4, or 5 years. Multilevel models tested longitudinal associations between sibling intimacy and conflict and youths’ risky behaviors and whether these associations varied by birth order or sex. Results showed positive covariation between sibling conflict and risky behavior for everyone except firstborns with younger brothers. Intimacy was positively linked with risky behavior in brother-brother pairs. Building on the idea that sibling intimacy may act as a risk factor under certain conditions, Study 2 assessed siblings’ collusion, or tendency to act as “partners in crime,” in a sample of school-aged sibling pairs from 174 families. Collusion was measured through child-report and videotaped observations. Analyses tested children’s and parents’ adjustment and parenting dynamics as predictors of sibling collusion. Positive links between collusion and children’s externalizing behavior, parenting stress, parent-child conflict, and parents’ authoritarian control emerged, as did negative links for children’s social competence and parental responsiveness, but links varied by sex and dyad sex constellation. Study 3 examined the longitudinal associations between parents’ differential treatment and youths’ adjustment and tested adolescent sex, birth order, and parents’ financial stress as moderators of these associations. Mothers, fathers, and two adolescent siblings in 179 African American families were interviewed on 3 annual occasions. Multilevel models revealed that decreases in youths’ experiences of parental warmth, relative to a sibling, were associated with increases in youths’ risky behavior and depressive symptoms, particularly in boys. Negative links emerged for differential parental conflict. These links were evident, however, in families under low but not under high financial stress. Taken together, these studies contribute to our understanding of siblings’ role in youths’ development and well-being, situate sibling effects within the broader family context, and provide information to inform prevention programs aimed at promoting positive development and reducing behavior problems by targeting sibling and related family dynamics.