Children's Perceptions of the Qualities of Sibling Relationships

Abstract

Although many studies of family constellations exist, only recently have investigators begun to examine the qualities of sibling relationships. The purpose of the present investigation was to develop a systematic framework for describing and assessing such relationship qualities. In the first study, upper elementary school children were interviewed about their perceptions of the qualities of their sibling relationships. These interviews yielded a list of 15 salient qualities. In the second study, a self-report questionnaire that assessed their perceptions of these qualities was administered to a sample of 198 fifth- and sixth-grade children. A principal components analysis yielded 4 underlying factors: (a) Warmth/Closeness, (b) Relative Status/Power, (c) Conflict, and (d) Rivalry. Relative Status/Power was found to be strongly related to the relative ages of the child and sibling. The other 3 factors were also related to various family constellation variables, but these relations were modest in size. Because family constellation variables and the qualities of sibling relationships are not isomorphic with one another, it is important to study relationship qualities directly, rather than simply examining family constellation variables. Some of the determinants of such qualities are discussed.

“Do Not Leave Your Values at Home”: A Study of Value Orientations of Italian Emerging Adults and Their Parents

“…In addition to some questions on socio-demographic characteristics (i.e, year of birth, gender, marital status, occupation), the questionnaire included the Italian version of the Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ; Capanna, Vecchione, & Schwartz, 2005;Schwartz et al, 2001) and three subscales (conflict, admiration, and satisfaction) from the Network of Relationship Inventory (NRI; Furman & Buhrmester, 1985).…”

“…The NRI (Furman & Buhrmester, 1985) was adapted for the Italian context by Guarnieri and Tani (2011). The NRI concentrates on different relationship aspects to draw a comprehensive picture of the quality of close relationship within the family.…”

“…The third goal was to examine the links between family relationships and within-dyad similarities in values. In particular, the following dimensions were analyzed with reference to both parent-child relationship and to couple relationship: conflict, admiration from the parent/partner (i.e., reassurance of worth; Furman & Buhrmester, 1985), and satisfaction with the relationship. Conflict elicits negative emotional reactions (Knafo & Schwartz, 2003), which may reduce motivation to pay attention to parents' or partner's values and undermine the ability to perceive them accurately.…”

Sibling Relationship Quality: Associations With Marital and Coparenting Subsystems

“…The Sibling Relationship Questionnaire (SRQ; Furman & Buhrmester, 1985) is a 48-item self-report measure that assesses a child's perception of his or her closest-in-age sibling relationship. Each item consists of an aspect of sibling relationships and a 5-point Likert-type rating from hardly at all to extremely much.…”

“…Given the changes that take place among subsystem interactions (Collins, Madsen, & Susman-Stillman, 2002) and the influence family functioning can have on later child adjustment (Johnson, 2003), continued investigation into subsystem functioning and quality of family relationships during this developmental period is warranted. In particular, the sibling subsystem provides an important context for child development (Furman & Buhrmester, 1985;. Research highlighting other family processes and subsystem functioning involved in the development of sibling relationships is needed in order to increase our understanding of the family system during middle childhood.…”