Siblings, parents, and partners: family relationships within a longitudinal community study. ALSPAC study team. Avon Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Childhood.
Links between sibling relationships, mother-partner, and parent-child relationships were studied in a longitudinal community sample of 3681 sibling pairs. Individual differences in sibling relationship quality were related to mother-partner affection and hostility assessed 4 years earlier, to contemporary parent-child negativity, and to indices of social adversity. Evidence for both direct and indirect pathways (via parent-child relations) linking mother-partner and sibling relations were found. Comparisons of prediction for non-stepfamilies and stepfather families showed similarities in patterns of association, but also differences: In stepfather families, mother-partner hostility was unrelated to parent-child negativity and sibling relationship quality. Both positivity and negativity towards young siblings decreased with the age of older siblings, and older sisters were more positive than older brothers.
Dunn
J
J
Institute of Psychiatry, Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Research Centre, London, UK. spjwaao@iop.bpmf.ac.uk
Deater-Deckard
K
K
Pickering
K
K
Golding
J
J
D000328:Adult; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004243:Divorce; D005195:Family Relations; D005260:Female; D006791:Hostility; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D009679:Nuclear Family; D010287:Parent-Child Relations