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This study examined parents' and children's descriptions of older and younger siblings' conflict goals in the late preschool and middle childhood years, and how these attributions were related to sibling relationship quality. Parents and 4- to 10-year-old children from 62 families were interviewed separately about siblings' motivations in two disputes and completed assessments of sibling relationship quality. Goal attributions varied across respondents in ways reflecting their family roles and positioning within disputes. Findings also revealed variations in the goals ascribed to older and younger siblings in line with hierarchical features of sibling relationships, such as younger siblings' conciliation/connectedness motives and older siblings' desires for autonomy/respect. Goal attributions were related to differences between families in the affective tenor of sibling relationships. Results demonstrate how power dynamics in sibling relationships play out in their everyday disputes, and underscore the importance of considering different family members' unique perspectives on children's sibling conflict experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evolutionary transition from solitary to social life is driven by direct and indirect fitness benefits of social interactions. Understanding the conditions promoting the early evolution of social life therefore requires identification of these benefits in nonderived social systems, such as animal families where offspring are mobile and able to disperse and will survive independently. Family life is well known to provide benefits to offspring through parental care, but research on sibling interactions generally focused on fitness costs to offspring due to competitive behaviors. Here we show experimentally that sibling interactions also reflect cooperative behaviors in the form of food sharing in nonderived families of the European earwig, Forficula auricularia. Food ingested by individual offspring was transferred to their siblings through mouth-to-anus contacts and active allo-coprophagy. These transfers occurred in both the presence and the absence of the tending mothers, even though the direct contact with the mothers limited sibling food sharing. Neither food deprivation or relatedness influenced the total amount of transferred food, but relatedness affected frass release and the behavioral mechanisms mediating food sharing. Related offspring obtained food predominately through allo-coprophagy, whereas unrelated offspring obtained food through mouth-to-anus contacts. Overall, this study emphasizes that sibling cooperation may be a key process promoting the early evolution of social life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sources of power children use in sibling conflict during early and middle childhood were examined according to French and Raven's typology of power. Participants included 66 dyads with an older ( M = 81.8 months, SD = 14.48 months) and younger ( M = 56.2 months, SD = 13.03 months) sibling. Data based upon naturalistic observations were coded for conflict issues (object, procedure, and information), power types (coercive, information, and legitimate), power effectiveness (attempts and successes), and resolutions (win/lose and compromise). Siblings used coercive power in object issues and information power in procedural issues. Whereas younger siblings used legitimate power in procedural and object issues including win/lose and compromise outcomes, older siblings used coercive power in win/lose resolutions. Siblings did not differ in their effectiveness of power, but they were most effective when coercive power was employed. Findings are discussed in light of power theory and the development of conflict management skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When parents with concave utility reward good behaviour on the part of their children with a share of the marginal utility they derive from good behaviour, a decrease in good behaviour by kid i causes kid j to increase the amount of good behaviour he/she supplies in equilibrium. This may explain why simultaneous good-kid behaviour is rare and also why children try to get their siblings into trouble. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sibling conflict can rise to the level of a clinical problem. In Phase 1 a lengthy behavioral role-play analog sampling child reactions to normal sibling conflicts was successfully shortened. In Phase 2 normal children who lacked sibling conflict resolution skills were randomly assigned to a Training or Measurement Only condition. Training consisted of five clinic sessions focusing on verbal reasoning, assertiveness, and acceptance skills. Trained children outperformed Measurement Only children on the shortened role-play test. Parents of trained children, but not untrained children, perceived improved social competence in the home. The project provides an empirical foundation for future research with aggressive siblings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Freud's interpretation of Little Hans's "phantasy of the two giraffes" (1909) is pivotal to his oedipal analysis that Hans has inchoate desires for sexual intercourse with his mother. Bowlby (1973) argued that Freud's focus on his oedipal theory led him to ignore preoedipal attachment-related factors that have equal plausibility in explaining the clinical data. However, Bowlby did not attempt to apply the attachment perspective to the interpretation of Hans's fantasies that form the core of the case material. A microanalysis of Hans's giraffe fantasy and the evidence used to support Freud's claims about it yields an attachment-based sibling rivalry account arguably of greater explanatory power than the oedipal account. Consistent with Bowlby's hypothesis, the evidence suggests that Hans's giraffe fantasy is about the sibling rivalry triangle involved in caregiver attachment access, rather than (or in addition to) the oedipal triangle. The issue of multiple levels of meaning and the methodological challenges raised by multiple determination is also considered. The giraffe fantasy's attachment-theoretic explanation encourages a rethinking of this classic case and strengthens Bowlby's claim that the case is fruitfully viewed from an attachment perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the songs from musicals of the 1950 to 1970 and investigates the songs that structured the sororal relation between the author and her sister. The author discusses her childhood stories concerning the songs which focused to Laura Ingalls "Wilder's Nelly Olesen" and presented envious songs and stories involving the pleasure experience of her sister with the songs of their generation's popular culture. The songs of the author's sister, projected all the ugliness of envy and the desire for women as companions.

Abstract: Although research that focuses on sibling placements in foster care has increased in recent years, for the most part this research has focused on single samples from a point-in-time perspective. In this paper, we approach the matter of sibling placements with longitudinal data, differentiating between the notions of togetherness and intactness in order to describe the placement experiences of sibling groups. We generally found that, although siblings often enter care on the same day, they make up less than half the groups entering care. We also found that small sibling groups are more likely to be placed intact. So, too, are siblings placed with relatives. We also studied intactness over time. All told, when the movement between statuses is accounted for fully, more sibling groups were intact at 6 months as a percentage of children still in care than at the time of placement. Moreover, there is evidence that separated siblings who remain in care are sometimes brought together over time, sibling group size and placement type affect the likelihood that siblings are brought together, and children who follow their siblings into care are much less likely to be placed with a sibling compared to siblings that enter foster care on the same day. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: California law requires that child welfare agencies place siblings together in foster care whenever possible. Such decisions depend on how siblings are identified. Siblings are usually identified when children are removed from the same household, while non-coresident siblings can be missed and may not be considered in placement decisions or analyses. This exploratory study examines a cross-section of children in the California foster care system, comparing four different sibling classification schemes to determine how well each method identifies siblings and discusses how each strategy might apply to meeting legislative mandates for placing siblings together. Findings suggest that while the current sibling identification method is effective at capturing most sibling relationships, the addition of other search criteria would offer a more comprehensive understanding of sibling placement activity, leading to a broader array of children identified as siblings and a greater potential for children to be placed with one or more of their siblings. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper develops a noncooperative Nash model in which two siblings compete for their parents' financial transfers. Treating sibling rivalry as a "rent-seeking contest" and using a Tullock-Skaperdas contest success function, we derive the conditions under which more financial resources are transferred to the sibling with lower earnings. We find that parental transfers are compensatory and that the family as an institution serves as an "income equalizer." Within a sequential game framework, we characterize the endogeneity of parental transfers and link it to parents' income, altruism, and children's supply of merit goods (e.g., parent-child companionship or child services). We show that merit goods are subject to a "moral hazard" problem from the parents' perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are two untested cultural beliefs commonly held among family therapists in Hong Kong: (1) Chinese families are reserved in disclosing their conflicts to an‘outsider’; and (2) it would be culturally inappropriate to elicit family conflicts in treatment. In this article, an attempt is made to examine these cultural beliefs based on the results of a qualitative study of thirty-five Chinese patients suffering from anorexia nervosa. These patients and their families have participated in a pre-treatment family interview prior to the commencement of family treatment. The results of the study have shown that the afflicted Chinese families are very willing to disclose their difficulties to the researcher. The onset of the disorder has led to different types of family conflicts including: (1) overt family conflicts related to food refusal; (2) covert family conflicts; (3) increased sibling rivalry; (4) increased parent–child conflict; and (5) marital tension and distress. The clinical implications of this study are discussed at the end of the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes that psychoanalytic psychotherapy can be a helpful form of treatment for certain autistic children. Some of the misconceptions surrounding this kind of treatment are discussed. The literature identifying a particular sub-group of autistic children is then reviewed and the characteristics of this group, and the relationship of their difficulties to early trauma, are described. Using clinical material from work with a child who probably fell within this sub-group, and who had very marked autistic features, the paper illustrates the importance of the therapist taking an active role in the therapy and how this helped the child to emerge from his withdrawn state. Particular emphasis is placed on the importance of introducing themes of aggression, and of this being done in a playful way. The impact of trauma on children's development, with particular reference to the acquisition of language, is considered. The role of sibling rivalry as a factor is emphasised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To test Richards and Goodman's hypothesis that a higher proportion of only children under age 5 years assessed in a psychiatric department do not present a psychiatric diagnosis, compared with preschool children with 1 sibling, and to investigate other variables relative to children in this age group with no psychiatric disorder, in light of Richards and Goodman's findings.Method: We gathered data from 169 children under age 5 years seen in the psychiatric department of a large pediatric hospital in Montreal, Quebec.Results: First, bivariate analysis showed no differences between the proportion of only children and children with 1 sibling regarding absence of a psychiatric diagnosis. Second, multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that child's age and mother's child-rearing attitudes were significant variables. Younger children (that is, age 0 to 2 years) and children whose mothers had "adequate" child-rearing attitudes (that is, not exhibiting significant impatience, rejection, stubbornness, neglect, or overprotectiveness) were more likely to have no disorder.Conclusion: These findings run counter to Richards and Goodman's results and suggest that other variables, such as child's age and mother's behaviour, are significant predictors of children under age 5 years having no diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies exploring sibling rivalry in the allocation of household resources in the USA produce conflicting results. We contribute to this discussion by addressing the role of sibling rivalry in educational attainment in Germany. Using the German Socioeconomic Panel (GSOEP) we are able to distinguish how the effects of sibling rivalry vary by cultural affiliation, i.e. among families of West German, East German and foreign origin. We also point out and correct for a reference group problem in earlier papers analyzing sibling rivalry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The presence of sibling "differentiating processes"--defined as processes in which increased sibling similarity in environmental or genetic factors leads to differences in sibling outcomes-poses a challenge for standard behavioral genetic theory and research. The presence of differentiation processes may affect estimates of genetic and environmental parameters in ways that have not been fully recognized. Utilizing data from the Nonshared Environment and Adolescent Development project, this study examined whether differentiating processes existed for seven composite indices of positive and negative adolescent adjustment. The 720 sibling pairs in the study were broken down into groups by age difference (0-4 years) between siblings. The hypothesis that siblings close in age would demonstrate lower correlations on adjustment measures was generally supported at two time points, three years apart. However, siblings one year apart at Time 1 were more similar to each other than were siblings two years apart, suggesting that shared environmental influences counteract sibling differentiation processes for these siblings. The overall trend supporting sibling differentiation was found to be unrelated to measures of sibling positivity and negativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study focused on jealousy between toddler and preschool siblings. Sixty-two families participated in triadic interaction sessions, in which mothers and then fathers were instructed to focus on one child (older sibling or toddler) while encouraging the other child to play with other toys in the room. Results indicated that child jealousy reactions differed between mothers and fathers, and parents behaved differently with older and younger siblings. Although older and younger siblings showed jealousy, older children were better than their toddler-age siblings at regulating jealousy responses and engaging in focused play. Further, younger siblings showed differences in jealous behavior when interacting with each parent, whereas older siblings showed somewhat greater behavioral consistency across parents, indicating internalization of emotion regulation style. Mothers expressed more happiness than fathers, and parents responded differently to older versus younger siblings' behaviors. Findings underscore the importance of examining emotion regulation processes within salient family relationships and of considering sibling interaction as a socialization context in which young children learn to negotiate emotional challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an extensive literature on the relationship between birth order and psychological traits, but no previous study has investigated the influence of ordinal position on personality development within adoptive siblings. Such a design is important because it effectively separates the effects of biological birth order and rearing order. Here we report data from two adoption cohorts in which subjects were biological first-borns reared in various ordinal positions. Data were analyzed with reference to Sulloway's (1996) evolutionarily based sibling rivalry theory of birth order effects. Between- and within-family analyses indicated that rearing order's influence on personality was very weak. The only clear difference was for conscientiousness, on which first-reared siblings scored higher. We draw possible implications for Sulloway's theory and speculate upon an alternative, prenatal biological process that may produce birth order differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focused on the content (rather than the frequency) of sibling conflict, conflict initiation, and conflict resolution during middle childhood. Sibling similarity and heritability of children's perceptions of sibling conflict were also examined. One hundred and eight school-aged sibling pairs were interviewed using a semi-structured interview format (average ages were 11.1 years and 8.2 years, respectively). Children's responses were coded using 16 categories extracted from the literature and interviews. Results showed that descriptions of disagreements revolved around issues between the siblings (e.g., sharing personal possessions and physical aggression) rather than parental favoritism. Parental intervention, on the other hand, was cited as the most common outcome. Children in the same family rarely mentioned the same issues and only six out of 16 of the topics showed a pattern suggesting heritability. The importance of the school-aged sibling relationship to children's sense of self, personal rights, and social understanding is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examined siblings' reports of children's depression, anxiety, and aggression, and their reports of the sibling relationship, and compared them with children's self-reports. In two samples, including 169 sibling pairs (age M = 9.98 years, SD = 1.51), no significant differences emerged in the levels of depression and anxiety found in siblings' reports of children's behavior and children's self-reports, although siblings reported children to have significantly higher levels of aggression than the children self-reported. Age, the difference in ages between siblings, sex, and sibling sex were not related to siblings' reports of children's behavior. The relations between children's and siblings' reports of children's behavior were significant, yet moderate (average r = .22). Both siblings' self-reports of internalizing behavior and their perceptions of aspects of the sibling relationship (affection, rivalry, hostility, and satisfaction with the sibling relationship) explained significant, and unique, variance in siblings' reports of children's internalizing behavior. The findings for aggressive behavior were similar, although siblings' perceptions of affection in the sibling relationship were not significantly related to their reports of children's aggression. The potential uses and benefits of sibling reports of children's behavior, and sibling and family relationships, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Therapists today are challenged with families who present complex, multiple, and multisystemic problems in treatment settings wherein therapy is increasingly limited in duration and frequency. Managed care usually sets restrictions on the length of therapy, focusing on time- and cost-effectiveness, while calling for efficient, high-quality treatment. Programmed Distance Writing (PDW) can be an answer to this challenge by encouraging families to be actively involved in the change process through structured homework assignments. PDW workbooks designed specifically for families include the Negativity Workbook, the Sibling Rivalry Workbook, and the Lying Workbook, are described in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The findings of three studies presented in this paper describe mothers' thoughts and feelings about sibling conflict and aggression as well as their own role in these important family events. Although the results of Study 1 were limited to families with preschoolers, several important features of parent cognitions were identified. Most mothers attributed sibling conflict to a variety of factors, including their children's personal characteristics, the competitive nature of sibling relationships, family structure characteristics, and parental attention and favoritism. In Study 2, physical aggression between preschool-aged siblings was estimated to occur once a week or more on average. In Study 3, estimates were lower: one-third of mothers estimated physical aggression occurred once a week or more regardless of their children's ages. These findings contrast with those of observational studies in which physical aggression between preschoolers occurred rarely. The majority of mothers of preschoolers in Study 2 expected physical aggression to decline as their children mature; however, these expectations were not supported by the findings of Study 3, in which mothers did not report less frequent physical aggression between older siblings.

The article presents a conceptualization of the central issues that siblings deal with in constructing their relationships. Sibling rivalry has long been recognized as one of the primary features of sibling relationships. It is a widespread, though reportedly not universal, occurrence. Sibling supportiveness and friendship, also widespread, are not routinely expectable lifespan outcomes although they are normatively enjoined. The article addresses the question by conceptualizing the family as a problematic setting for siblings and their parents, who must construct some kind of relationship through interaction. By studying interviews with parents and children in 33 families, four central issues in sibling relationships were identified. The four main issues delineated can usefully be regarded as standing in dialectical pairs. The issue of equity is concerned with treating siblings in such a way that they feet they have not been treated significantly differently. But the issue of maturity introduces contrary considerations. Greater age results in presumed greater competence and hence in greater status. The issues of loyalty and individuality similarly are dialectical opposites in their' implications. Loyalty provides the basis for making claims upon the other, while individuality provides the basis for rejecting such claims.

The rent-seeking competitions studied by economists fall within a much broader category of conflict interactions that also includes military combats, election campaigns, industrial disputes, lawsuits, and sibling rivalries. In the rent-seeking literature, each party's success pi (which can be interpreted either as the probability of victory or as the proportion of the prize won) has usually been taken to be a function of the ratio of the respective resource commitments. Alternatively, however, Pi may instead be a function of the difference between the parties' commitments to the contest. The Contest Success Function (CSF) for the difference form is a logistic curve in which, as is consistent with military experience, increasing returns apply up to an inflection point at equal resource commitments. A crucial flaw of the traditional ratio model is that neither one-sided submission nor two-sided peace between the parties can ever occur as a Cournot equilibrium. In contrast, both of these outcomes are entirely consistent with a model in which success is a function of the difference between the parties' resource commitments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on a study which examines the effects of the birth of a sibling on the behavior of children during their preschool and early grade school years. This study investigates the changes in socioemotional development, achievement, and self-concept after the birth of a sibling in a cohort of preschool-aged children over a 2-year period and a 4-year period. Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth were used in this study. This study provides evidence of the effects of the birth of a sibling on a cohort of 3- to 5- year-old children over a 4-year study period. Analyses of data for younger children show that younger children received substantially less developmental resources following the birth of a sibling. It was found that the birth of a sibling is associated with a significant increase in the behavior problems of the children, but these increases are temporary. The birth of a sibling also is associated with lower reading recognition scores among economically disadvantaged children.

The article presents information on a study which investigates the effects of the birth of a sibling on the cognitive and socioemotional development of children during their first six years of life. This study investigates the changes in the level of cognitive and socioemotional development after the birth of a sibling in a national cohort of infants and toddlers over a 4-year period. Also, it investigates the changes in interactions between the mother and the older child and in the cognitive and socioemotional development of the older child after the birth of a sibling. This study considers two types of emotional resources provided to the child by the mother: The affective quality of the mother-child interaction and the authoritarian quality of the mother-child interaction. Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth are used on a cohort of nonminority children between 6 and 23 months old. It was hypothesized that the effects of sibling birth are mediated by the associated changes in the family environment and changes in the interaction patterns of the family members. It was found that the groups analyzed in this study were largely similar in sex, age, maternal age at the birth of the older child, maternal level of employment, and day care attendance at baseline. About 2.5 years after the sibling birth, negative effects are detected on achievement and on socioemotional adjustment. Some positive effects of sibling birth also are noted on verbal ability and peer relations.

The article presents a study to demonstrate statistically relationships between some twenty-eight symptoms of problem behavior in children and eleven environmental and other factors. The symptoms dealt with were as follows: hyperactivity, pugnaciousness, destructiveness, antagonism to authority, disobedience, incorrigibility, masturbation, sex play, stealing, lying, sibling rivalry, selfishness, somatic complaints, irresponsibility, withdrawing behavior, inferiority feelings, enuresis, temper tantrums, speech disability, nervous symptoms, fears, tics, poor appetite, poor sleep, dependency on parents, reading disability, running away, and school problem behavior.

The article focuses on the direction and generality of the relationship between ordinal position and affiliative tendencies. Ordinal position has been categorized into two groups, one that those who are only children, combined with first-borns who have siblings, and second is, later-born children. It is predicted that first-borns are higher in need for affiliation than are later-borns. First-borns may have stronger affiliative tendencies than later-borns because they associate their mothers more strongly with anxiety reduction in childhood. On the assumption that siblings must compete for a limited quantity of parental affection, a researcher predicted that second-born children would have higher need for affiliation than first-borns with siblings, and that the latter would be higher in affiliations than would only children. If the sibling rivalry theory is valid, the first-born with siblings should be particularly aroused by the individual testing situation. Such a situation should reintegrate the negative affect associated with loss of social stimulation and support.

Several photographs depicting sibling rivalry are presented.