Observed sibling interaction: links with the marital and the mother-child relationship.
The study examines whether the link between the marital relationship and sibling interaction is direct or mediated by the mother-child relationship. Seventy-three same-sex siblings pairs aged 3 years 6 months to 8 years 6 months were observed during free play. Mothers completed questionnaires assessing marital functioning and their relationship with their 2 children. Results indicated that older siblings' negative behavior is linked with negative dimensions of the marital and the mother-child relationship, whereas younger siblings' negative behavior is linked with the mother-child and the differential mother-child relationship. Siblings; positive behavior, although linked with spacing, is not linked with positive dimensions of family interaction. Most important, the linkage between negative marital relations and older siblings; negative behavior was found to be mediated by maternal power assertion, thereby supporting the indirect model of negative family interaction.
Erel
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School of Education, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. msosnat@mscc.huji.ac.il
Margolin
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John
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D000328:Adult; D001721:Birth Intervals; D002648:Child; D002653:Child Behavior Disorders; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005195:Family Relations; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008393:Marriage / Q000523:psychology*; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D012801:Sibling Relations