Citation

Jensen AC, McHale SM, Pond AM. J. Youth Adolesc. 2018; 47(10): 2088-2099.

Affiliation

Brigham Young University, 2086 JFSB, Provo, UT, 84602, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s10964-018-0865-y

PMID

29916187

Abstract

Parents compare their children to one another; those comparisons may have implications for the way mothers and fathers treat their children, as well as their children's behavior. Data were collected annually for three years with parents, firstborns, and secondborns from 385 families (Time 1 age: firstborns, 15.71, SD = 1.07, 52% female; secondborns, 13.18, SD = 1.29, 50% female). Parents' beliefs that one child was better behaved predicted differences in siblings' reports of parent-child conflict. Additionally, for siblings close in age, mothers' comparisons at Time 1 predicted youth's problem behavior at Time 3 through siblings' differential conflict with mothers. The results support and extend tenets from Social Comparison and Expectancy Value theories in regards to social comparison within families.

Language: en

Keywords

Adolescent problem behavior; Conflict; Parental differential treatment; Parenting; Siblings; Social comparison