Characteristics And Qualities Of Sibling Relationships

Although scientific research on sibling relationships is not very extensive, it is of great importance:  siblings play a great role in our lives and in our development. Throughout history these have been present in a multitude of stories, legends and tales; examples of these are the love story between brothers of Isis or Osiris or the relationship that the brothers have in Mozart’s work of the Magic Flute.

We all know from our own experience or from what we have seen in other families that the relationship between siblings is not only important because of its incidence in the social sphere, but also in the level of cognitive development. Parents turn much of their efforts into training and educating their children, but siblings are also going to influence their education; either positively or negatively.

Today, both educational and clinical psychologists are aware of the impact of the nature of sibling relationships. For this reason we can find a multitude of studies and research around this field of study. In this article, we are going to specifically talk about two hypotheses: (a) the sibling compensation hypothesis and (b) the hostility due to favoritism hypothesis. Both hypotheses are related to the treatment of parents towards different children.

The sibling compensation hypothesis

First of all, it is relevant to clarify that  sibling relationships cannot be studied or investigated in isolation ; that is, it is important to take into account other variables, such as the differential treatment of parents towards siblings. This is where our first question arises, what happens if parents show poor treatment of their children? Could the siblings make up for that deficit through their relationship?

The sibling compensation hypothesis argues that siblings can develop a closer and warmer relationship and help each other in situations where they experience a relative lack of parental care. That is, the siblings would act to compensate or substitute for the parents and thus achieve normal development despite the lack of parental upbringing.

Studies on this hypothesis show results in favor of it. It seems that there is an inverse correlation between the quality of parent-child interaction and the quality of sibling relationships. In a study by Bryant and Crockenberg in the laboratory, it was found that the mother’s indifference towards her children correlated with a greater number of prosocial behaviors from the older brother to the younger brother.

These results lead us to believe that school-age siblings support and teach each other in the absence of parental support. But, you have to be careful when interpreting these data, as studies sometimes show conflicting data. This is because there are many more factors besides parental relationships that regulate sibling relationships.

The hypothesis of hostility due to parental favoritism

We have previously discussed how sibling relationships can become warm and close due to parental treatment, but also parental behavior can generate hostility between siblings. And this is where the hypothesis of hostility due to parental favoritism appears. This will talk about the perceptions that children have about how parents treat their siblings.

The hypothesis of hostility due to parental favoritism postulates that siblings can develop hostile relationships if one of them perceives that they are treated worse than the other. That is, if a son observes that his parents show favoritism towards his brother, a jealous response will appear; which will trigger hostile behavior towards his brother.

In an experiment, Hetherington found that when one of the siblings is treated with less warmth and affection, the probability that the interaction between siblings is aggressive increases and rivalry behaviors prevail. But like the previous hypothesis, it must be taken into account that there are many more factors that can modulate the relationship between siblings.

In any case, the different studies about sibling relationships show us the importance of siblings in our life and development. In the end, a brother is in many cases that reference of knowledge and trust that will accompany us most of our lives.