News Release

Parent's Approaches To Sibling Conflict

Peer-Reviewed Publication

American Psychological Association

Despite Believing In Active Approaches To Sibling Conflict, When Squabbling Starts, Most Parents Do Not Intervene, New Study Reports

WASHINGTON -- "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me" seems to be a believed-in axiom by many parents. New research published this month in the journal Developmental Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association (APA), shows that when it comes to conflict between siblings most parents choose to ignore it even when they do not believe that nonintervention is the best approach.

In their study, "Parental Beliefs About Managing Sibling Conflict," psychologists Lisa Perozynski, Ph.D., and Laurie Kramer, Ph.D., examined two parental beliefs relevant to sibling conflict: First, which types of conflict management strategies did the parents believe worked best for resolving conflict between siblings, and, second, which strategies did the individual parent feel most confident in performing.

The authors hypothesized that parents who used child-centered strategies would generally believe that these techniques were most effective and that they were competent at performing them. Parallel hypotheses were held regarding the use of parental control and passive nonintervention strategies.

To test their theories, the authors studied 88 two-parent/two-sibling households all consisting of second-born children between the ages of three and five. The average age spacing between the two siblings was 2 years and 9 months. The authors visited families in their homes to observe parents' response to sibling conflict and to administer a set of self-report surveys to parents.

While the authors' hypothesis held, parents were not consistent in their appraisals of the type of intervention that would work and their actions when sibling conflict actually occurred. The intervention strategy parents used most often, not intervening at all, was not the one they believed would be the most effective nor was it the one they felt most confident in performing. Contrary to parents' self-reports that techniques that involve helping the children to resolve conflicts on their own or the assertion of parental authority were the most effective ways to restore peace between siblings, parents engaged in passive nonintervention more than three times as often as they employed other, more active, management techniques.

Earlier research divided disciplinary styles into three broad categories: Reasoning or induction, power assertion, and love withdrawal. Reasoning involves discussions with the child about why the behavior is inappropriate, often including how the behavior may hurt others. Power assertion may involve physical punishment, force, withdrawal of privileges, threats or commands. Love withdrawal involves direct expressions of disapproval, shame or humiliation.

For the purpose of the study, the authors divided the disciplinary styles into two main approaches: Child-centered strategies in which parents attempt to help the children communicate with one another and problem solve on their own; and parental control strategies which seek to eliminate the sibling conflict through punitive actions. A third option for parents is not to intervene at all, labeled by the authors as passive nonintervention.

Results showed differences in mothers' and fathers' beliefs about effective discipline strategies and differences in the way parents discipline children depending upon the ages of the children. For the resolution of verbal conflicts, mothers considered child-centered strategies and passive nonintervention as more effective than did fathers.

When conflict between siblings escalates to pushing and shoving both mothers and fathers were more likely to endorse parental control methods as the appropriate intervention.

However, when the parents' confidence in their ability to perform the disciplinary technique was factored in, a significant relationship was found between the parents' action and their gender. For verbal conflicts, mothers felt more comfortable performing child-centered interventions than did fathers. Mothers felt equally able to perform child-centered or control strategies, whereas fathers reported that they were substantially more able to enact control than child-centered strategies. For physical conflicts, fathers felt more confident in performing both control and passive nonintervention strategies in comparison with mothers.

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Article:
"Parental Beliefs About Managing Sibling Conflict" by Lisa Perozynski, Ph.D., New Mexico State University-Carlsbad, and Laurie Kramer, Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in Developmental Psychology, Vol. 35, No. 2.

(Full text available from the Public Affairs Office)

Laurie Kramer, Ph.D. can be reached at l-kramer@uiuc.edu or 217 333-0628 (both weekdays and weekends)

The American Psychological Association (APA), in Washington, DC, is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States and is the world's largest association of psychologists. APA's membership includes more than 155,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 50 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 58 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance psychology as a science, as a profession and as a means of promoting human welfare.



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