The Use of Force for Resolving Family Conflict: The Training Ground for Abuse

Evolutionary Perspectives on the Nature of Sibling Conflict: the Impact of Sex, Relatedness, and Co-residence

“…The most commonly cited source of conflict by both older and younger siblings is the sharing of personal possessions, and the least commonly cited source is competition over parental attention. This has been a consistent finding in studies conducted with toddlers and preschool-aged siblings (Dunn and Munn 1985;Steinmetz 1977), school-aged siblings (McGuire et al 2000), as well as adolescent siblings who noted conflict over personal space and possessions as not only the most frequent source of conflict but also the most intense (Campione-Barr and Smetana 2010).…”

The Socialization of Sibling Rivalry

“…As in numerous works that have documented bidirectionality of affective responding, we found that adults' affective responses to a child's negative affect depended on its level of intensity (Perlman & Ross, 1997;Steinmetz, 1977). Whereas opinions of a child exhibiting mild negative affect were unchanged by context, those of a child exhibiting intense negative affect differed dramatically with motivating context.…”

“…It would appear that parents are so attuned to anger that they distinguish not only between situations that do and do not involve anger, but also within different kinds of anger-inducing contexts. Perhaps due to its ubiquity, or perhaps because it has been identified as a precursor of extra-familial aggression and as representing risk for poor child outcomes, it seems that parents are keenly aware of negative emotionality and place emphasis on its resolution (Arsenio & Lover, 1997;Carson & Parke, 1996;Denham, Mitchell-Copeland, Strandberg, Auerbach, & Blair, 1997;Putallaz & Sheppard, 1992;Steinmetz, 1977).…”

A Theoretical Model of the Development of Jealousy

“…(p. 31) Certainly, sibling aggression is not unknown among human children (Steinmetz, 1977). Whether it can also be construed as having ever represented threat greater than that posed by a predator is an open question.…”