Explaining Sibling Similarities: Perceptions of Sibling Influences

This study examined older siblings’ influence on their younger brothers and sisters by assessing the connections between youth's perceptions of sibling influence and sibling similarities in four domains: Risky behavior, peer competence, sports interests, and art interests. Participants included two adolescent-age siblings (firstborn age M=17.34; second-born age M=14.77) from 191 maritally intact families. Analyses revealed that second-borns’ perceptions of influence were positively linked to siblings’ reports of intimacy and temporal involvement, but not to reports of negativity. Further, sibling similarities were most evident when younger siblings reported sibling influence and when their older brothers and sisters reported high engagement, competence, or interest in a particular domain. Discussion focuses on the challenges of documenting sibling influence and the need to refine its measurement. Shawn D. Whiteman is an Assistant Professor of Child Development and Family Studies at Purdue University. He received his Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies from The Pennsylvania State University. His major research interests include how siblings directly and indirectly act as sources of social influence and social comparison within families and how their family experiences foster similarities and differences in their relationship qualities, attributes, and adjustment. Susan M. McHale is a Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at The Pennsylvania State University. She received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her major research interests focus on children's and adolescents’ family roles, relationships and activities with a particular emphasis on gendered family dynamics and youth's sibling relationship experiences. Ann C. Crouter is a Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at The Pennsylvania State University. She received her Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies from Cornell University. Her major research interests focus on the implications of parents’ work situations for parents’ and children's health, psychological development, and family relationships.     

Differential Parental Treatment,Sibling Relationships and Delinquency in Adolescence

The present study examined the moderating effect of the quality of the sibling relationship on the longitudinal association of parental treatment with theft, vandalism, and violence in adolescence. Participants were 416 sibling pairs which were studied over a one-year period. The younger siblings were aged 13 to 15, the older siblings 14 to 17 at Time 1. No significant effects were found for mixed-sex dyads. For same-sex dyads, the results suggested that when the relationship was of poor quality, younger boys who felt treated less favorably by their mothers were most likely to show high levels of vandalism and violence, while younger girls who felt treated less favorably were most likely to show high levels of theft. No such effects were found for older siblings. These findings indicate that differential parental treatment and the quality of the sibling relationship have gender-specific effects on adolescents’ delinquency and have a different meaning for younger than for older siblings.

Individual and Sibling Characteristics: Parental Differential Treatment and Adolescent Externalizing Behaviors

Adolescents’ reports of parental differential treatment have been linked to increased externalizing behaviors. The current study investigated whether adolescent self-esteem and sibling relationship characteristics (age-spacing and sibling relationship quality) moderated associations between parental differential treatment and later externalizing behavior. Data was gathered at two assessments from 708 sibling pairs (94% White; 51% male; same-gender pairs <4 years apart in age). Older/younger siblings were aged M_Assessment1?=?13.5/12.1 and M_Assessment2?=?16.2/14.7 years. We found that higher levels of maternal differential treatment predicted greater residualized gains in externalizing behavior among older siblings who were (a) the same age as their sibling or near-to and had low self-esteem or (b) three years older than their sibling and had higher self-esteem. Higher levels of paternal differential treatment predicted greater residual gains in externalizing for older siblings with wider age ranges (regardless of self-esteem), and among older siblings with high levels of self-esteem (regardless of age difference). Surprisingly, maternal differential treatment was protective in one case: for adolescents with low self-esteem who were at least three years older than their siblings, maternal differential treatment predicted reduced externalizing behaviors. Paternal differential treatment was protective for more youth than maternal differential treatment: older siblings with low self-esteem who experienced paternal differential treatment exhibited decreased externalizing behaviors across adolescence, regardless of age difference. The findings highlight the importance of self-esteem and sibling age-spacing as particularly salient contextual influences in older siblings’ perceptions of maternal and paternal differential treatment, and that maternal and especially paternal differential treatment does not always serve as a risk factor for externalizing problems.     

Linkages Over Time Between Adolescents' Relationships with Parents and Friends

This 5-wave longitudinal study examines linkages over time between adolescents’ perceptions of relationships with parents and friends with respect to support, negative interaction, and power. A total of 575 early adolescents (54.1% boys) and 337 middle adolescents (43.3% boys) participated. Path analyses mainly showed bidirectional associations between adolescents’ perceptions of parent–adolescent relationships and friendships with a predominantly stronger influence from parent–adolescent relationships to friendships than vice versa in early to middle adolescence and an equal mutual influence in middle to late adolescence. The findings support the theoretical ideas that perceptions of relationships with parents generalize to perceptions of relationships with friends and that relationship skills and principles of adolescent friendships generalize to relationships with parents. Furthermore, the results indicate that the influence of parents decreases, whereas the influence of friends increases, and that both social worlds become equally important and overlapping towards late adolescence.     

Self-Regulation in Early Adolescence: Relations with Mother–Son Relationship Quality and Maternal Regulatory Support and Antagonism

The purpose of the current investigation was to examine relations among maternal regulatory support, maternal antagonism, and mother–son relationship quality in relation to boys’ self-regulation during early adolescence. As part of a larger longitudinal study on 263 low-income, ethnically diverse boys, multiple informants and methods were used to examine associations among parenting practices and mother–son relationship quality in relation to boys’ self-regulation at ages 10 and 11. Multivariate analyses indicated that high levels of regulatory supportive parenting and relationship quality and low levels of antagonistic parenting independently predicted high levels of boys’ self-regulation at age 10. Only antagonistic parenting and relationship quality explained variance in levels of boys’ self-regulation at age 11 after accounting for prior self-regulation. The findings suggest that parenting and the context of the parent–child relationship are linked to self-regulation during early adolescence; however, it appears that parental antagonism and relationship quality, not maternal regulatory supportive parenting, contribute to rank-order change in self-regulation abilities. Implications of these results for research and practice are discussed.     

Parental Support and Knowledge and Adolescents’ Sexual Health: Testing Two Mediational Models in a National Dutch Sample

This study investigated age- and gender-specific associations between parental support and parental knowledge of the child’s whereabouts, on the one hand, and sexual experience and sexual health (the ability to have safe and pleasurable sexual experiences) on the other hand. A representative Dutch sample of 1,263 males and 1,353 females (aged 12–25 years), who had previously engaged in sexual intercourse, completed a questionnaire that included measures of these constructs. Both parental support and knowledge were positively associated with contraceptive use, social skills in sexual interactions, sexual satisfaction, and delay of sexual debut. Findings also revealed that the majority of correlations between parental support and sexual experience and sexual health are attributable to the relationship between a supportive family environment and parental knowledge of the child’s whereabouts. Parental knowledge thus appeared to be more important for healthy sexual development than parental support.     

Sibling Relationships and Empathy Across the Transition to Adolescence

Although socioemotional competencies have been identified as key components of youths’ positive development, most studies on empathy are cross-sectional, and research on the role of the family has focused almost exclusively on parental socialization. This study examined the developmental course of empathy from age 7 to 14 and the within-person associations between sibling warmth and conflict and youths’ empathy. On three occasions across 2?years, mothers, fathers, and the two eldest siblings from 201 White, working- and middle-class families provided questionnaire data. Multilevel models revealed that, controlling for youths’ pubertal status and parental education, girls’ empathy increased during the transition to adolescence and then leveled off, but boys’ lower levels of empathy remained relatively unchanged. Moreover, controlling for parental responsiveness and marital love, at times when firstborns and second-borns reported more sibling warmth and less sibling conflict than usual, they also reported more empathy than usual. The within-person association between sibling warmth and empathy also became stronger over time. Findings highlight gender differences in empathy development and the unique role of siblings in shaping each other’s socioemotional characteristics during adolescence.     

Longitudinal Associations Between Sibling Relational Aggression and Adolescent Adjustment

Sibling relational aggression is an important but understudied dimension of sibling relationships that has potential implications for adolescents’ adjustment. This study examined the longitudinal associations between being the target of sibling relational aggression and adolescent adjustment (i.e., depressive symptoms, risky behavior, self-worth, and romantic competence) among younger and older siblings over a three-year period in adolescence. The moderating roles of birth order, sibling gender, and sibling dyad gender constellation also were tested. Participants were 196 European American adolescent (firstborn-secondborn) sibling pairs who were 16.47 years (SD?=?0.80) and 13.88 years (SD?=?1.15) of age, respectively, at the onset of this study. Data were collected separately from each sibling during home interviews. Multilevel models revealed that being the target of sibling relational aggression was associated with all four adjustment outcomes at the between-person level, and with risky behavior and romantic competence at the within-person level. However, some of these effects were moderated by sibling dyad characteristics. Although often overlooked in the literature on adolescence, sibling relationship dynamics play a key role in youth development and adjustment.     

Advice About Life Plans and Personal Problems in Late Adolescent Sibling Relationships

This study examined older adolescents' perceptions of the following sibling relationship characteristics: advice about life plans and personal problems, satisfaction with support, and sibling influence on interests and goals. Little is known about late adolescent sibling relationships and siblings' role in the identity formation process. Differences between first- and secondborns, males and females, and opposite- and same-gender sibling pairs were explored. Participants were 223 adolescents (M = 17.5 years old) who filled out a survey in their senior year of high school. All adolescents were from always-married families and had one sibling between the ages of 13 and 23. Analyses revealed that both secondborns and females reported receiving more advice, being more satisfied with sibling support, and being influenced more by their sibling than firstborns and males, respectively. In addition, those in female–female sibling pairs received more advice from their siblings than those in male–male and mixed gender pairs. Findings revealed that adolescents do sometimes rely on their siblings as a source of advice about life plans and personal problems.     

Parental involvement in adolescent romantic relationships: patterns and correlates

This study examined dimensions of mothers’ and fathers’ involvement in adolescents’ romantic relationships when offspring were age 17. Using cluster analysis, parents from 105 White, working and middle class families were classified as positively involved, negatively involved, or autonomy-oriented with respect to their adolescents’ romantic relationships. Patterns of parental involvement were generally not associated with parent–offspring relationship quality at about adolescent age 13, but earlier parent–offspring relationship quality moderated the associations between parental involvement and adolescent romantic experiences at about age 18. Positive parent–offspring relationship quality buffered the effects of negative parental involvement, whereas poorer parent–offspring relationship quality was a more adaptive context for adolescents of autonomy-oriented parents. Discussion focuses on the importance of parenting practices in adolescent romantic relationships and the emotional climate of parent–offspring relationships as a developmental context for those practices.

Life Satisfaction in Early Adolescence: Personal,Neighborhood, School,Family, and Peer Influences

Drawing from an ecological assets framework as well as research and theory on positive youth development, this study examined the relationship of early adolescents’ satisfaction with life to trait optimism and assets representing the social contexts in which early adolescents spend most of their time. Self-reports of satisfaction with life, optimism, and ecological assets in the school (school connectedness), neighborhood (perceived neighborhood support), family (perceived parental support), and peer group (positive peer relationships) were assessed in a sample of 1,402 4th to 7th graders (47% female) from 25 public elementary schools. Multilevel modeling (MLM) was conducted to analyze the variability in life satisfaction both at the individual and the school level. As hypothesized, adding optimism and the dimensions representing the ecology of early adolescence to the model significantly reduced the variability in life satisfaction at both levels of analysis. Both personal (optimism) and all of the ecological assets significantly and positively predicted early adolescents’ life satisfaction. The results suggest the theoretical and practical utility of an assets approach for understanding life satisfaction in early adolescence.     

Parental Management of Peer Relationships and Early Adolescents’ Social Skills

Despite a growing body of research on parental management of peer relationships, little is known about the relationship between parental management of peers and early adolescents’ social skills or the precursors to parental management of peer relationships. The goals of this short-term longitudinal investigation were to examine the relationship between parental management of peers (consulting and guiding), conflict about peers, and adolescents’ social skills (cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy, and self-control) and to examine potential precursors (goals of improving peer relationships and beliefs about authority over peer relationships) to parental management of peer relationships. A predominantly White sample (71%) of 75 seventh-graders (57% female) and their primary caregivers participated in the 9-month investigation. Caregivers completed questionnaires regarding goals of improving their adolescents’ peer relationships, beliefs about parental authority over peer relationships, parental management of peers, and adolescents’ social skills. Adolescents completed questionnaires regarding their social skills. Path analyses suggest that a greater number of caregivers’ goals of improving peer relationships and higher beliefs about parental authority over peers were related to higher levels of consulting, guiding, and conflict about peers. Higher levels of conflict about peers in conjunction with higher levels of consulting were related to lower levels of assertion and responsibility in peer relationships over time. When parents reported having a greater number of goals of improving peer relationships, adolescents reported higher levels of cooperation, assertion, empathy, and self control over time. Findings suggest that caregivers’ goals and beliefs are important in predicting parental management of peer relationships and adolescents’ social skills over time, and that conflict about peers undermines caregivers’ efforts to be positively involved in adolescents’ peer relationships.     

Developmental Changes in Adolescents’ Perceptions of Relationships with Their Parents

This 4-wave longitudinal study examines developmental changes in adolescents’ perceptions of parent–adolescent relationships by assessing parental support, conflict with parents, and parental power. A total of 951 early adolescents (50.4% boys) and 390 middle adolescents (43.3% boys) participated. Univariate and multivariate growth curve analyses showed that support declined from early to middle adolescence for boys and girls and increased from middle to late adolescence for girls, while stabilizing for boys. Conflict was found to temporarily increase during middle adolescence. Parental power (relative power and dominance of parents) decreased from early to late adolescence. Results indicated that: (1) parent–adolescent relationships become more egalitarian during adolescence, (2) parents perceived by adolescents as powerful are viewed as supportive, especially in early adolescence, and (3) perceived conflict with parents is related to but not an impetus for changes in parent–adolescent relationships towards more equality.

Individual and Sociocultural Influences on Pre-Adolescent Girls’ Appearance Schemas and Body Dissatisfaction

Appearance schemas, a suggested cognitive component of body image, have been associated with body dissatisfaction in adolescent and adult samples. This study examined girls’ weight status (BMI), depression, and parent, sibling, peer, and media influences as predictors of appearance schemas in 173 pre-adolescent girls. Hierarchical regression results indicated that appearance schemas scores were associated with girls’ level of depression, perceptions of parental influence on weight concerns, appearance related interactions with other girls, and awareness of media messages; perceptions of sibling influence on weight concerns and BMI were not independent predictors. In addition, appearance schemas were associated with girls’ level of body dissatisfaction. One implication of these findings is for prevention programs to focus on reducing the importance and value that girls place on appearance by targeting social influences, particularly parental influence, in order to reduce risk for adolescent body dissatisfaction and related risk behaviors.Doctoral candidate in Human Development and Family Studies at the Pennsylvania State University. Her research interests are the development of disordered eating and body dissatisfaction from middle childhood through adolescence.Distinguished professor of Human Development and Family Studies at the Pennsylvania State University. Her research interests are child and adolescent eating behavior.     

College students' relationships with siblings

Two hundred and seventy-five college undergraduates coming from families of 2–7 children completed questionnaires about their relationships with their siblings. Aspects of intersibling communication, influence, and current and past affective relationships were investigated. The relationships reported were generally more positive than those revealed in other investigations of younger children. Presence of two parents in the home, size of the sibling group, and ordinal position of the respondent student had particular effects upon reported relationships. Furthermore, there were qualitative differences in the relationships between sibling pairs of different ordinal statuses. Results indicate that relationships between siblings have both complementary and reciprocal features, and caution against unidimensional characterizations.Teaches courses in child and adolescent development and assessment, and supervises school psychology trainees doing their internships. Received Ph.D. in psychology State University of New York at Albany. Main areas of research are sibling relationships, task attitudes and intrinsic motivation, and topics in adolescence.     

The Effects of Gender and Family,Friend, and Media Influences on Eating Behaviors and Body Image During Adolescence

The current study expands upon body image research to examine how gender, self-esteem, social support, teasing, and family, friend, and media pressures relate to body image and eating-related attitudes and behaviors among male and female adolescents (N = 177). Results indicated that adolescents were dissatisfied with their current bodies: males were concerned with increasing their upper body, whereas females wanted to decrease the overall size of their body. Low self-esteem and social support, weight-related teasing, and greater pressures to lose weight were associated with adolescents’ negative body esteem, body image, and eating attitudes. Females displayed more high risk eating behaviors—which were associated with more psychosocial risk factors—than males, whose high risk attitudes and behaviors were only associated with low parental support and greater pressure to be muscular. Reducing adolescents’ perceptions of appearance-related pressure from family and friends may be key for enhancing body image and decreasing links between low self-esteem and negative eating behaviors and weight-related perceptions. Rheanna N. Ata is currently a research assistant at the Weight Control and Diabetes Research Center, Miriam Hospital/Brown University. She is interested in body image and eating disorders and completed this research during her undergraduate studies at the College of the Holy Cross. Alison Bryant Ludden is a developmental psychologist whose research focuses on social relationships and problem behaviors during adolescence, with a special interest in school as a developmental context. She is an assistant professor of psychology at the College of the Holy Cross. Megan M. Lally is currently a graduate student in psychology at Pepperdine University. She completed this research during her undergraduate studies at the College of the Holy Cross.     

How Do I Feel About Feelings? Emotion Socialization in Families of Depressed and Healthy Adolescents

Emotional and cognitive changes that occur during adolescence set the stage for the development of adaptive or maladaptive beliefs about emotions. Although research suggests that parents’ behaviors and beliefs about emotions relate to children’s emotional abilities, few studies have looked at parental socialization of children’s emotions, particularly in families with depressed adolescents. The present study examined associations between parent and adolescent meta-emotion philosophies (MEP), defined as thoughts, reactions, and feelings about their own emotions. Additionally, adolescent depressive status was tested as a moderator of relationships between parents’ and adolescents’ MEP. One hundred and 52 adolescents, aged 14–18 (65.8% female), and their parents (148 mothers, 106 fathers) participated in a study on emotion socialization in families of depressed and healthy adolescents. Depressed adolescents (n = 75) and matched healthy adolescents (n = 77) were recruited based on research criteria for mental health status. The sample was largely Caucasian (82%) and of middle socioeconomic class status. Results indicated that mothers’ and fathers’ MEP about their children’s emotions were associated with adolescents’ MEP, although parents’ MEP about their own emotions was unrelated to adolescents’ MEP. Fathers’ MEP about children’s emotions made unique contributions to adolescents’ MEP across both adolescent groups. Adolescents’ depressive status moderated the relationship between mothers’ and adolescents’ MEP such that mothers’ MEP was particularly relevant for depressed adolescents. The continued influence of parents in the emotional lives of adolescents is discussed as well as differences in emotion socialization in families with depressed and healthy adolescents.     

Parent–Child Relations and Offending During Young Adulthood

There is a long tradition of studying parent–child relationships and adolescent delinquency. However, the association between parent–child relationships and criminal offending during young adulthood is less well understood. Although the developmental tasks of young adulthood tend to focus on intimate relationships, employment, and family formation, the parent–child bond persists over the life course and likely continues to inform and shape behavior beyond adolescence. Using data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (TARS), the influence of parental involvement on patterns of offending among respondents interviewed first as adolescents (mean age of 15 years), and later as young adults (mean age of 20 years), is examined. The TARS sample used for our study (N = 1,007) is demographically diverse (49.5% female; 25.3% Black; 7.2% Hispanic) and includes youth beyond those enrolled in college. The influences of both early and later parenting factors such as support, monitoring and conflict on young adults’ criminal behavior are examined. Results show that early monitoring and ongoing parental support are associated with lower offending in young adulthood. These effects persist net of peer influence and adolescent delinquency. This suggests the importance of examining multiple ways in which parental resources and support influence early adult behavior and well-being.     

Social Support and Low-Income,Urban Mothers: Longitudinal Associations with Adolescent Delinquency

The current study examined the role of engaged parenting in explaining longitudinal associations between maternal perceptions of social network support and whether youth engage in delinquent behaviors during the transition into adolescence. The sample included 432 low-income, African American and Latino youth (49% female) and their mothers participating in “Welfare, Children, and Families: A Three City Study”. Results from longitudinal SEM analyses demonstrated that social network support was associated positively with mothers’ engaged parenting as youth transitioned into early adolescence. Engaged parenting, which functioned as a mediating variable, was associated with less youth delinquency during transitions into middle adolescence. Taken together, social network supports appeared to facilitate mothers’ abilities to remain engaged with their children and to deter youth from becoming involved in delinquent behaviors.     

Parenting by Cell Phone: Parental Monitoring of Adolescents and Family Relations

Cellular phones provide a means for parents to monitor and request information about whereabouts, associates, and current activities from adolescents. Simultaneously, adolescents can communicate with parents to inform them of activities and to solicit support or they can also choose to nondisclose. The frequency, duration, and nature of calls may relate to parents’ and to adolescents’ perceptions of truthfulness and family relationships. 196 dyads (13% father–son, 11% father–daughter, 30% mother–son, and 46% mother–daughter) completed a questionnaire indicating cell phone use, their truthfulness of activities, the nature of their calls to one another, and family relationships. The parents were, on average, 45.38 years old (SD = 6.35) and were 83% Euroamerican, 9% Asian American, 3% Latino, 3% African American, 2% Mixed ethnicity, and 1% American Indian. The adolescents were, on average, 16.25 years old (SD = 1.17) and were 77% Euroamerican, 9% Asian American, 4% Latino, 3% African American, 8% Mixed ethnicity, and .5% American Indian. Correlational analyses revealed that parents who called more frequently reported less truthfulness when speaking to their adolescents via cell phone. Greater frequency in parental calls also was associated with less adolescent-reported truthfulness. From multiple regression analyses, for parents, calls when upset were associated with less parental knowledge and poorer family relations. For adolescents, the same was true; however, adolescents who made calls seeking social support and to ask and confer with parents reported greater perceived parental knowledge and better family relationships.