When Do Siblings Compromise? Associations with Children's Descriptions of Conflict Issues, Culpability, and Emotions

Abstract

This study examined associations between children's descriptions of sibling conflicts and their resolutions during a structured negotiation task. A sample of 58 sibling dyads (older sibling M age = 8.39 years, younger sibling M = 6.06 years) were privately interviewed about an actual conflict. Each child provided a narrative that was coded for conflict issues, identified who was at fault, and described each sibling's conflict emotions. Children's subsequent conflict negotiations were coded for whether compromise outcomes were reached. Compromises were more likely when conflicts implicated physical harm and children reported experiencing sadness during their fights. Compromises were less likely when children believed that their sibling was solely culpable for a fight or they attributed more anger to self than to their sibling. Results also revealed various birth order, age group, and gender effects. Findings are discussed in light of moral domain theory, children's interpretive understanding of conflict, and goal-based theories of emotions.

Differing Domains of Actual Sibling Conflict Discussions and Associations with Conflict Styles and Relationship Quality

“…For all other dyad types, conflicts over equality and fairness were the most frequently observed. This is consistent with findings by Recchia and Howe () that fairness and rights issues were particularly frequent for early and middle childhood siblings. The present study also identified conflicts over moral issues involving intrinsic harm and conflicts regarding interpersonal relationships.…”

“…Previous research from a social domain perspective has found that adolescents increasingly reason about their conflicts with parents from a personal domain perspective (Smetana, ; Smetana, Daddis, & Chuang, ) as they desire and gain increasing autonomy over the adolescent period. Thus, although Recchia and Howe () found that personal domain conflicts were very rare during early and middle childhood, the increased salience of autonomy issues to adolescents may lead to an increase in the occurrence of, or the interpretation of conflicts as being, personal domain invasion conflicts.…”

“…Recently, research investigating sibling conflict from a social domain perspective has emerged. Recchia and Howe () interviewed early and middle childhood sibling pairs about their sibling conflicts and coded children's references to three different domains of conflict: moral, conventional, and personal. The researchers also further divided moral issues into three categories: physical harm, psychological harm, and fairness/rights.…”

“…To date, studies of adolescent siblings' conflict content have only utilized questionnaires (Campione- Barr et al, 2013;Campione-Barr & Smetana, 2010) or standardized interviews (Raffaelli, 1992) about previous sibling conflicts. Studies of younger siblings' conflicts also have used semi-structured or open interviews, as well as observations (McGuire et al, 2000;Recchia & Howe, 2010;Ross et al, 2006;Wilson et al, 2004). Conducting observational studies with adolescent siblings also is important in order to better understand the content of sibling conflict and how the content of conflicts is associated with the quality of conflict discussions and relationship quality.…”

The Invisible Kryptonite Among Super Helpers the Healers of Humanity: Advocating for Super Helpers to Practice What They Preach to Clients?

“…Given these conflicting results further research is needed to understand the influence older siblings have on social perspective-taking in children with ASD. In addition, many studies that involve sibling interactions rely on naturalistic observations and only examine families with two children [72]; other studies confound the effects of birth order and age [106]. Therefore, further research is needed to clarify how siblings influence perspective-taking abilities in both typically and atypically developing children.…”