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The relationship between quality social relationships and good social skills, emphasizing rigorously implemented experimental evaluations and longitudinal studies. It discusses individual, family, peer, and community-level factors that influence the development of these competencies, focusing on studies that highlight their importance as antecedents and identifying groups at risk. The document also touches upon the impact of relationships with non-parent familial adults, natural mentors, and deviant peers.
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We would like to express our appreciation to all of the people that helped with the creation of this report. We thank our external reviewer, William Bukowski of Concordia University’s Department of Psychology, for his thoughtful comments. We also thank Kristin Moore and Jonathan Zaff for their insightful comments and critiques that contributed to making this a better report. We are also grateful for Thomson Ling's help with literature searches and technical assistance. Finally, we want to express our gratitude to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation for their support of this project and, in particular, John Bare for his integral role in shaping and guiding this series of reviews.
the social skills have a chance to develop^1 , the paper presents the antecedents of quality social relationships first, and then presents the antecedents of good social skills.
For each social relationship and social skill, we present research evidence from individual-, family-, peer-, and community-level factors that have been shown to relate to the development of quality social relationships and/or good social skills. In addition, we present intervention programs that demonstrate improvements in adolescents’ social relationships and/or skills.
The social relationships that this chapter will focus on fall into two domains: family and non-family. Family relationships include those with parents, siblings, grandparents, and other family members. Non-family relationships include other adults and peers. The social skills described in this chapter fall into two domains, as well. The interpersonal skills domain includes social skills such as conflict resolution, intimacy, and prosocial behaviors. The individual attributes domain includes skills such as self-control, social confidence, and empathy/sympathy.
We emphasize (1) studies that are rigorously implemented experimental evaluations of interventions, in which aspects of the environment are manipulated and social competencies are examined; and (2) studies that are longitudinal, that involve the examination of aspects of the environment as predictors of social relationships and/or social skills and that use multivariate analyses taking background characteristics of the youth into account. 2
We have emphasized these types of studies for several reasons. An experimental/control group study is the only research design that permits causal conclusions (as long as they are well- implemented and there is not extensive attrition in the sample over time). It should be noted, though, that experimental designs run the risk of not being generalizable to populations other than those which were studied. Therefore, we highlight studies that have been replicated with similar results across different populations and geographic regions, because successfully replicated interventions have a better chance of being reproduced in additional locations than do studies that have been carried out in a single place, at one single point in time. In addition, longitudinal studies that control for background characteristics can address change over time and address predictive validity better than studies that collect data from one time period (i.e., a cross- sectional design). When little or no information exists for a certain topic, we have included cross-sectional studies with strong theory and rigorous, multivariate; these studies are identified, however, so readers will not place undue confidence in their findings.
Since the focus of the paper is on adolescents, we have also restricted studies to those that assess outcomes during adolescence. Therefore, the studies that have outcome data only for childhood are not considered. However, we include longitudinal studies that began in childhood and continued into adolescence or adulthood.
In many cases, we discuss characteristics of the youth, family, neighborhood, or society that a program may not be able to change. For instance, programs designed to promote quality
(^1) We recognize that some researchers would argue that social skills are, in fact, present at the earliest of ages in the
form of temperament. The child’s temperament interacts with the parent’s personality/social skills to promote (or degrade) the development of positive relationship with between the parent and the child. (^2) These criteria for study inclusion in the present report were culled from a review of school readiness written for the
John L. and James S. Knight Foundation (Halle, Zaff, Calkins, and Margie, 2000).
relationships or good social skills cannot manipulate a youth's gender or ethnicity. However, the studies that highlight these characteristics as important antecedents can be used to identify groups that may be at most risk for not having close relationships or good social skills. These characteristics may need to be addressed in the design of a program geared toward a specific sub- group.
Throughout this paper, our aim is to go beyond the broad identification of which factors appear to be linked to social skills and competencies, to the identification of specific strategies (the kinds of programs and activities within these programs) that have been attempted and evaluated, and/or for which there is evidence that initiating programs with these activities has the potential to contribute to improved social competency. Due to the rigorous criteria we set for our selected literature review, we may not have identified all programs and activities across the country that may be effective in promoting these skills. This point is especially pertinent for the research based on adolescents. Compared to adults, and even to younger children, there is a relative dearth of high quality research for adolescents.
Social relationships are crucial aspects of individuals’ lives. This is certainly true for adolescents. This section of the chapter addresses the antecedents of quality social relationships. This section is divided into domains: family relationships and non-family relationships. The family relationships that are discussed include parents, siblings, and grandparents/other family members. The non-family relationships include other adults and peers, such as an adolescent’s best friend and dating partner. As mentioned above, quality social relationships and good social skills are interrelated. Often different studies find these factors to be antecedents for each other.
Family Relationships
Parents
Introduction
In most families, it is with parents that children establish their first social relations. As such, this union has the potential to be particularly formative. Numerous researchers who study this topic agree that the nature of the parent-child relationship, its stability, and the context in which it develops, largely determine the social skills and social relations the child will develop with others later in life (Aquilino, 1994; Ladd, 1999; Paley, Conger, & Harold, 2000; K. H. Rubin & Rose-Krasnor, 1992; Zahn-Waxler & Smith, 1992).
Given that many studies report a clear relationship between a positive parent-child relationship and the development of social skills, it is fortunate that even today--- when members of the public consider parents to occupy an increasingly insignificant role in their children’s lives--- over ninety percent of an adolescent sample in one study identified their mother and/or father as significant in their lives (Blyth, Hill, & Thiel, 1982), and 94% and 82% of young adults in a national survey identified mothers and fathers, respectively, as “special adults who really cared about them” (National Commission on Children, 1991b). Current discussion on the matter even suggests that today’s parents appear to be significantly more involved with and to know
influential figures in adolescents’ lives for advice on major life decisions (Holmbeck et al., 1995).
Certain longitudinal studies describe a positive change in the parent-child relationship over time. Kim et al. (2001) conducted a nine-year study of parents and adolescents from 451 Caucasian families in rural Iowa. The investigation found that “negative affect” in the parent- child relationship increased through childhood, then declined slightly just prior to the end of the his or her high school career. Similarly, Rice and Mulkeen (1995) found that from adolescence through young adulthood there is a steady, moderate increase in closeness between parent and child. This study tracked reported levels of parent-child intimacy in a sample of 109 predominately Caucasian, middle- to upper-middle class adolescents from the Midwest; data was collected in eighth grade, twelfth grade, and four years subsequent to 12th^ grade. Finally, literature suggests that, relative to fathers, mothers may be particularly able to maintain a functional parent-adolescent relationship by tailoring the relationship to accommodate the youth’s changing socio-developmental needs (Youniss, 1994). Research has also, however, found a negative change in certain qualities of the parent- child relationship. Larson & Richards (1991) conducted a cross-sectional study of the daily time us of 493 9- to 15-year-old suburban youth; the sample was almost exclusively Caucasian American, and was socio-economically mixed. Participants were paged at random times over a one-week period, to prompt self-reports of whom they were spending time with, their location, their activities, and their mood. Data showed a dramatic decrease in time spent with the family as a whole, the quantity halving from fifth to ninth grade. Affect for the family was reported at lower levels in sixth to eighth grade, but had regained the fifth grade level by ninth grade. Time with just the mother or just the father figures, and time spent conversing with either parent, was not found to change over time. Reviews of the current literature also emphasize that adolescence is a time of increasing influence from peers as opposed to parents (Brown & Theobald, 1999), of increased conflict and negative affect between parents and children (Cox, in press), and of diminished orientation towards the parent-child relationship (K. H. Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 1998).
Some studies have concluded, however, that different elements of the parent-child relationship change or remain the same depending on particular events in, and characteristics of, the family in question. Aquilino (1997) employed longitudinal data from the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH). Respondents consisted of 1,507 parents, mostly biological or adoptive (91%), and mostly mothers, who had at least one child between 12 and 18 years of age at Time 1. Analysis of the data suggested that the elements of emotional closeness, control, and conflict in the parent-child relationships remain largely continuous into adulthood. However, certain life transitions appeared to clearly change the relationship in a positive direction. The study found that events such as leaving home, marriage, full-time employment, and enrollment in college all appeared to encourage better-quality parent-child relationships. However, a decrease in emotional closeness was reported by parents subsequent to the child’s home-leaving, and the child’s transition to parenthood was associated with reports of lower relationships quality.
In sum, there are mixed findings on the stability of the parent-child relationship. Longitudinal studies have found that certain qualities of the union remain the same, while others change in positive and negative directions.
Antecedents
Individual Given that parent-child relationships can affect such positive outcomes, such as social accomplishment and positive mental health, it is valuable to understand the factors and contexts that influence their likelihood and success. There is a moderate amount of literature on the individual antecedents of parent-child relationships. Longitudinal results are discussed below, but cross-sectional investigations are also included. Though they are not necessarily conclusive, these studies provide a larger set of studies with which to consider these relationships. As noted above, cross-sectional studies are always identified.
The adolescent’s rapport with parental figures appears to predict divergent outcomes. Hightower (1990) conducted a longitudinal investigation of 141 subjects from Berkeley, California. Measures of interpersonal relations, psychological health, and personality were administered when the subjects were age 13 and again at age 50. Results suggest that the degree of respect in a parent-adolescent relationship predicted the adolescent’s focus on and involvement in relationships with peers and parents. A cross-sectional study by Rice, Cunningham, and Young (1997) found that the gender of the parent appears to predict the effects of parent-child relationships. The researchers sampled 630 Southern college students, of which 249 were African American and the rest were Caucasian American. The degree of a child’s attachment to the father was found to be a more accurate predictor of social competence than his or her attachment to the mother. In this case, social competence is understood as the ability to develop relationships with peers, to access social support when needed, and to be comfortable in social situations, for example. Interestingly, in Rice and Mulkeen’s (1995) longitudinal investigation findings showed that boys have closer relationships with their father than girls do.
Furthermore, cross-sectional research suggests that individual personality characteristics may influence parent-child conflict. Data from a subsample of the NSFH indicated that parent reports of characteristics such as unhappiness, anxiety, bullying, or a quick temper in the adolescent, for example, were positively associated with higher reports of conflict in the parent- child relationship (Barber, 1994). The sample was composed of 1828 parents of at least one child between 12- and 18-years-old. Participants were Caucasian (73%), African American (21%), and Hispanic (6%).
Adolescents’ dating experiences also seem to play a key role in determining the character of parent-child relationships. Dowdy and Kliewer (1998) investigated the dating behavior and reports of parent-child relationships in a cross-sectional study of 859 high school students. The sample was from the southeast, and was diverse in regard to ethnicity, socioeconomic background, and family structure, though gender was split unequally (71% female). The investigation found that adolescents who dated, especially females and short-term daters, were more likely to have “intense conflict” with their parents than were non-daters. This association is moderate, though significant (Dowdy & Kliewer, 1998). These results support findings by Quatman et al. (2001). A cross-sectional study of 380 adolescents in eighth, tenth, and 12 th grade was recently conducted in Northern California. The researchers found that frequent dating, described as dating more than “once or twice a month,” is associated with poorer familial relationships than those in families of adolescents who date infrequently (Quatman, Sampson, Robinson, & Watson, 2001).
influence the degree to which children benefit from parent-child relationships. Drawing from research conducted by Sroufe (1983), Hutt (1966), Vygotsky (1978), and Sigel (1982), Rubin and Rose-Krasnor (1992) concluded that the competent parent will guide and nurture the child’s independent problem-solving, and encourage the acquisition of new and challenging social skills.
Overall, parents’ individual characteristics appear to influence the quality of parent-child relationships. Expressions of affect, personal character traits, and styles of parenting may determine the rapport parents are able to establish and maintain with their adolescents.
Family There are several factors stemming from family structure and characteristics of the family that appear to affect the parent-child relationship. Parenting styles have been found to differ according to socioeconomic status and, to a lesser extent, by race and ethnicity (Julian, McKenry, & McKelvey, 1994). Unfortunately, there is limited research on the direct influence of these characteristics on the parent-child relationship. Family structure and the quality of interfamilial relationships are well-represented in the literature, however, and are important to the understanding of the parent-child relationship.
Family disruption seems to be one of the most salient of the family-related factors. Wallerstein and Blakeslee (1989) conducted a longitudinal study of 116 children of divorced families. At the time of the first interview, the children’s sample was roughly split between eight years old and younger, and nine to eighteen years. The sample was composed largely of Caucasian American (88%), well-educated families in which the divorce had recently occurred. Among a myriad of other findings, data from interviews conducted at five and ten years indicated that divorce had a negative effect on the quality of parent-child relationships. The findings from this study in particular, though, may not represent the experiences of divorced families in general, as the sample was biased toward families who sought clinical help following divorce. Similar results, however, were found by Woodward, Fergusson, and Belsky’s (2000) longitudinal investigation, the Christchurch Health and Development Study. The study investigated, from birth through age 16, 1,265 youth of a birth cohort in Christchurch, New Zealand. The researchers found that parental separation was negatively associated with the child’s attachment to parents. However, many such studies are countered by the argument that divorce and separation are merely indicators of pre-existing problems--- such as conflict--- in these families, and that these problems, and not the family’s structure, cause the negative outcomes in question^3 (Hetherington & Kelly, 2002). Due to this, researchers have had great difficulty trying to prove that the actual process of divorce or the changed family structure, itself, engenders problems in the parent-child relationship. Still, some studies suggest that certain family structures negatively affect elements of the parent-child relationship. Retrospective reports from the cross-sectional, nationally representative National Survey of Families and
(^3) Interestingly, one longitudinal study questions the association between the inter-parent and the parent-child
relationship. Moller and Stattin (2001) collected data in a longitudinal study of 185 Swedish men and women. One hundred thirty-one representatives of these subjects were either married or cohabitating at the time of the last interview, which took place when the they were an average of 37 years old. This study found that the quality of the parents’ relationship was not associated with the quality of the parent-child relationship Moller, K., & Stattin, H. (2001). Are close relationships in adolescence linked with partner relationships in midlife? A longitudinal, prospective study. The International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development, 25 (1), 69-77.. These findings, however, represent an exception in the research of divorce and its effects; the grand majority of related literature has reported that parental divorce does in fact matter in the development of children.
Households (NSFH) show that, compared to their counterparts from intact families, children in single- or divorced-mother homes spend significantly less time with their residential mother and, especially, with their biological father (Mclanahan & Sandefur, 1994). Furthermore, data from Menaghan’s (1997) longitudinal study, described above, suggest that families in which a single or divorced mother resides with an unmarried partner are associated with a lower quality of parent-child interaction than that of families in which a mother is in her original marriage or married to a new man. The influence of family structure on the parent-child relationship can also be mediated by custodial arrangements; see the end of this section for discussion on custody effects.
Other research stresses the presence of family discord as more disruptive than just family structure. Cross-sectional research based on NSFH data found that family process variables appeared to most significantly influence the quality of parent-child relationship (Lansford, Ceballo, Abbey, & Stewart, 2001). Reports on relationships between family members, overall family atmosphere, and parent and child well-being were collected from 799 families representing five different family structures (intact adoptive parents (14%), intact biological parents (25%), divorced single mother (25%), biological mother and stepfather (25%), and biological father and stepmother (11%)). Analysis of the data showed that mothers in stepmother and stepfather families reported less frequent arguments than mothers in intact biological families or adoptive families, and that adoptive mothers and two-parent biological fathers reported higher “family cohesion”, measured in reports of fun, compassion, love, and teamwork versus tenseness, stress, and distance in the family, than other mothers and fathers, respectively. The researchers concluded that family processes, such as interpersonal disagreements, were more accurate predictors of family relationships than family structure was found to be. Similarly, research conducted by Musick and Bumpass (1998), based on a subsample of NSFH data, suggests that marital discord, in general, is associated with expressions of less positive parent-child relationships. The participants consisted of 842 non-Hispanic Caucasian children ages 12 to 18, and their mothers and/or fathers. Cross-sectional data showed that parents in stepfamilies were less likely to show affection to their children, in hugs or praise, than their intact marriage or single counterparts. The researchers found that parents from medium- or high-conflict intact families are more likely to hit or yell at their children than parents from single parent families, step-parent families, or low-conflict intact families.
Interestingly, longitudinal research conducted by Shapiro and Lambert (1999) suggested that it is, in fact, the residential status of the parent that most significantly affects the parent-child relationship following divorce. Participants were 844 married fathers of a minor child at Time 1 who were participating in the NSFH. At the Time 2 interview, four to seven years later, some of the participants had divorced (14%); at this time the participants’ focal child was no older than 19 years of age. In-depth analysis revealed that divorced fathers who lived with the child, 29% of the divorced cases, reported father-child relationships of a similar quality to those of continuously married fathers and their children. Similarly, analysis of a subsample of the NSFH- -- 4,422 individuals 19 to 34 years old, with a history of three or fewer family types, and with a living parent from whom they lived independently--- revealed differences in parent-child relationship quality by custody arrangement in nonintact families (Aquilino, 1994). Reports of the quality of custodial mother-child relationships in nonintact families were nearly as positive as those of participants from intact families; there was virtually no difference in relationship quality when marital dissolution had occurred early in the child’s life. However, reports of the quality of non-custodial father-child relationships from nonintact, maternal custody families were
Family, at the Institute for Social and Behavioral research at Iowa State University, investigated 446 families from low-income areas in Iowa. The sample was randomly assigned to either a control or treatment group, which underwent two-hour teaching sessions over seven weeks. The first hour of the session consisted of separate parent and adolescent training. Among other issues, parents were taught limit-setting, communication, encouraging good behavior, and using community resources; adolescents received training on goal-setting, appreciating parents, dealing with stress, and how to deal with peer pressure. A subsequent hour of joint training focused on appreciating others, understanding family values, conflict resolution, and various communication skills. Data, which was collected for four years after the initial treatment, showed that parents experienced more sophisticated parenting skills, had increased “positive feelings” towards their child, and strong parent-child relationships continued to develop over time. This program has been tailored to work with specific ethnic populations, as well; informal measures suggest similarly successful outcomes, but longitudinal studies are still underway.
Improvement in the parent-child union can also be accomplished through a reduction of conflict in the relationship. Programs such as ASSET (Adolescent Social Skills Effectiveness Training) seek to reduce such conflict with social skills training for both parents and children. A quasi-experimental evaluation by Noble, Adams and Openshaw (1989), and later by Openshaw, Mills, Adams and Durso (1992), investigated the impact of ASSET on 25 Mormon, dual-parent, middle-class parent-child dyads. The dyads were recruited through advertisements, and self- selected themselves into the control and treatment groups according to their ability to accommodate the training schedule (Openshaw et al., 1992). Pre- and post-tests were performed. One study found that the parent-child pairs in the treatment group improved communication and problem-solving skills at a rate of two- to three- times that of the comparison group (Noble et al., 1989). The other study reported “only modest evidence… that social skills enhancement was able to significantly improve interpersonal relationships,” but found improvements in social skills for both groups; post-test, adolescents demonstrated improved problem-solving and negotiability, parents perceived changes, in the expected directions, of warmth and hostility in the relationships, and both parties reported increases in their ability to give and receive negative feedback (Openshaw et al., 1992).
Furthermore, an intervention program focused on parenting appears to ultimately encourage better quality parent-child relationships. The program, geared to educate adolescents on the responsibilities and consequences of parenthood, was part of Save the Children’s Positing Parenting Project in a rural area of Scotland (Cutting & Tammi, 1999). Program exercises included generating ideas of skills and qualities participants considered important in a parent, employing a parent’s perspective to evaluate problems, conflicts, and responsibilities, and discussing the lifestyle changes that would occur if participants had children. In a retrospective evaluation, 27 respondents, 18 males and 9 females between the ages of 13 and 14, reported an increased understanding of their parents’ decisions, motivations, and sacrifices. Respondents also reported being more empathetic towards their parents and more understanding of the demands parents placed on them. However, no females and only a quarter of the males perceived a positive change in their parent-child relationship.
Improvements in this union may also come from intervention programs which seek to accomplish their goals through changes in the parent-youth relationship. A program in Southern California, for example, sought to prevent tobacco and alcohol use through the informative bilingual lessons, social skills training, and communication development between parents and children. Six hundred sixty migrant Hispanic families with adolescents participated in the eight-
session program, including three parent-child sessions, and a homework component with which parents were encouraged to help. Experimental evaluation found that Hispanic adolescents from families with fewer children experienced notable improvements in parent-child communication (Litrownik et al., 2000).
Mentoring and mentor-like relationships between adults and adolescents may also improve the parent-child relationship. This positive change may result by virtue of the adolescent’s participation in a “successful” relationship with a mentor, in which he or she can develop fundamental elements of social interaction, such as trust in others and the productive expression of emotions (Tierney, Grossman, & Resch, 1995). This phenomenon was explored by Tierney, Grossman and Resch (1995), who experimentally evaluated the effects of the Big Brothers/Big Sisters (BB/BS) program. Data were collected from 959 youth, split nearly evenly into the control and treatment groups, at the time of entry into the study, at the time the child- mentor match was made, and 18 months after entry into the study. The majority of the sample was from a minority background (55%), male (60%), and between 11 and 13 years old (69%); all of the sample was between the ages of 10 and 16. Over 25% these youth had been subject to physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, and many (over 40%) were participating in public assistance programs. The researchers found that the quality of parent-child relationships, measured in changes in trust, communication, anger/alienation, was positively associated to participation in the program. Participants also reported lying to their parents less frequency than youth in the control groups (Tierney et al., 1995). Rhodes, Grossman, and Resch (2000) also found that “mentoring led to statistically significant improvements in… youth’s relationships with their parents”.
Overall, it appears that various kinds of intervention programs have the potential to positively affect the parent-child relationship. The diverse programs appear to be achieve these improvements through the development of general communication, conflict management, and perspective-taking skills.
Summary
In sum, adolescents’ quality relationships with their parent(s) have implications for the many outcomes related to the healthy development of adolescents. For instance, the parent- child relationship is associated with development of social skills such as conflict resolution and intimacy. In addition, the parent-child relationship appears to influence the development of other social relationships, such as romantic relationships and other friendships. This relationship also influences the psychological and psychosocial development of youth. There are mixed findings on the stability of the parent-child relationship; for example, qualities such as conflict and closeness are found not to change in certain studies, while they are both found to increase in other studies. However, data from representative samples are not available, and without such data definitive statements are not possible.
Individual characteristics, such as the degree of respect in the relationship, the gender of the parent, the gender of the youth, the youth’s personality, and the youth’s dating experience are all related to the quality of the parent-child relationship. Similarly, individual parents’ behavior, level of affect, and parenting styles, as well as characteristics of the family as a whole, influence the quality of the parent-child relationship.
There is evidence that intervention programs may positively influence the quality of the parent-youth relationship, though most have not been evaluated experimentally or on representative populations. For instance, there is some evidence that participation in social skills
negative behavior towards older siblings is associated with lower levels of perceived social competence at a later time point for the older sibling.
Stability
Overall, research indicates that, while the dynamics of sibling relationships remain quite stable from early childhood through adolescence, and are largely predicated on the quality of early childhood relationships, particular family dynamics and sibling characteristics are associated with fluctuations in sibling relationship quality during adolescence. Dunn, et al. (1994) found that within the families studied, both behavior towards and perceptions of another sibling are highly stable between preschool and early adolescence. Furthermore, the stability of the relationship remains regardless of birth order. Longitudinal research carried out by Stocker and Dunn et al. (1994) on 118 families revealed that, based on mothers’ reports, both hostile and warm relationships towards a sibling are stable between childhood and early adolescence. Similarly, Stillwell and Dunn (1985) have documented the continuity between sibling relationships from early childhood through middle childhood. Stocker and Dunn (1994) suggest that continuity in parents’ relationship with each sibling, as well as children’s stable temperamental characteristics, may be partially responsible for sibling relationship stability. These authors also suggest that siblings may simply develop patterns of interaction that are themselves stable despite the developmental changes each child goes through. Finally, Dunn et al. (1994) suggest that continuity in each child’s relationship with his or her parents as well as continuity of family dynamics foster sibling relational stability.
Although the dynamics of sibling relationships tend to remain stable over time, certain sibling personality and behavioral characteristics can, over a short period of time, permanently alter sibling relationship quality (Stocker & Dunn, 1994). For example, those sibling dyads that have a hostile older sibling and a non-hostile younger sibling, or a highly active older sibling, the level of hostility, as measured three years later, directed towards the younger sibling by the older sibling goes down. Additionally, older siblings initially perceived by an independent observer as receiving more maternal control when compared to the younger sibling show higher levels of hostility toward their younger sibling three years later. Conversely, levels of hostile behavior directed towards the older sibling by the younger sibling go down over time when the older sibling exhibits positive emotionality towards the younger sibling (Stocker & Dunn, 1994). As mentioned earlier, negative life events as well as parental disharmony can lead to siblings growing closer (Dunn et al., 1994). Finally, Dunn et al. (1994) also found that new friendships that children form outside the family can have a negative effect on the quality of sibling relationships.
Antecedents
Individual One’s ability to initiate and maintain relationships with another person is in part predicated on individual personality traits, behaviors, and characteristics. Sibling relationships are no exception. From personality to gender, individual characteristics are highly predictive of one’s relationship quality with a sibling over time.
Numerous studies on sibling relationships have found that certain temperamental characteristics are highly predictive of sibling relationship quality. Cross-sectional research conducted on 96 mother-sibling-sibling triads found a strong link between personality traits and
early adolescent sibling relational quality (Stocker, Dunn, & Plomin, 1990). Those personality traits that had a positive effect on relationship quality were a shy older sibling, a sociable younger sibling, a low frequency of upset in both the older and younger sibling, and a short duration of upset for the younger sibling. Those personality traits that had a negative effect on relationship quality were a high activity level of the younger sibling, a younger sibling prone to fits of extreme anger, and a younger sibling with an overall high level of anger. Cross-sectional research on 40 same-sex sibling dyads with the oldest sibling nearing adolescence found that children high in emotionality and activity and low in persistence tend to direct more negative behavior towards their sibling (Brody, Stoneman, & Burke, 1987)s.
Beyond a sibling’s temperament, research suggests that specific sibling behaviors can affect the relationship as well. Cross-sectional research carried found that among the 826 mostly white adolescents and adults ranging from age 18 to 25 sampled, that youth with a heavy drinking sibling report weaker relationships with their heavy drinking sibling than do those youth with a non-heavy drinking sibling (Stevenson & Lee, 2001). Authors assert that because heavy drinking is associated with behaviors that are considered disruptive by family members, and these behaviors complicate family dynamics, relationships with heavy-drinking siblings tend to be strained. Somewhat counter-intuitively, some research suggests that delinquent acts can serve as a common interest between siblings and thereby foster sibling relationships. Slomkowski et al. (2001) found that common levels of delinquency are positively related to sibling relationship quality. Utilizing a nationally representative sample, Rowe et al. (1992) found a similar relationship between shared levels of delinquency and positive sibling relationships.
Research has shown that demographic characteristics such as age and gender are also associated with the quality of sibling relationships. Dunn et al. (1994) found that during early adolescence boys tend to report less warmth and intimacy with their younger sisters than do early adolescent girls. It should be noted, however, that one recent study found no gender effects when researching sibling relationships (Dunn, Deater-Deckard, Pickering, Golding, & the ALSPAC Study Team, 1999). With respect to the influence of age, both longitudinal research conducted by Dunn et al. (1999) in the United Kingdom on an ethnically diverse sample of over 3,500 early-adolescent sibling dyads, and cross-sectional research mentioned earlier conducted by Stocker et al. (1990) found that older adolescents are less likely to report conflict with their siblings than are younger adolescents and children.
Beyond environmental influences, research also suggests that genetic influences may play a role in determining the quality of sibling relationships. Researchers believe that personality development is equally influenced by environmental and genetic factors (Plomin, 1991; Turkheimer, 2000). The influence of genetics on personality development influences social relationships through the effect one’s personality has on how others relate to him or her. Research by Rende, Slomkowski, Stocker, Fulker, and Plomin (1992) suggest that the relationship between genetics, personality, and relationship quality pertains to sibling relationships (Rende, 1992).
In sum, individual factors ranging from temperament, levels of alcohol consumption, age, gender, and genetic influences on personality can affect the quality of adolescent sibling relationships.
