How Do Your Siblings Affect Your Development?
In addition to being our best friends and our worst enemies, our siblings play a crucial role in our development.
Did you know one of the longest family relationships in an individual's life is with their sibling? Right from our formative years to old age, we tend to spend significant amounts of time with them and as a result, they get to know and understand us in a manner unlike any other person can.
Having spent the majority of my life as an older sibling, I think I know a thing or two about this nuanced relationship. Over the years, I have grown to understand the role that my brother has played in my life in impacting my temperament, personality, and overall development. I am also aware that as his sibling, I must have contributed to his growth and development.
So as I began to ruminate over this thought over the last week, I began looking up some research on siblings’ contribution to one’s overall development and found some very interesting research literature out there. So for those of us with siblings, this article might be quite the eye-opener as it will take a deep dive into how siblings shape our development directly and indirectly. So let's begin.
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How Do Siblings Directly Impact Your Development?
Direct influence is built upon observational learning; a well-researched method that explains our tendency to learn through observing and modelling other's behaviour (e.g. peers, parents and siblings). Observational learning among siblings can happen in one of two ways; imitation or modelling.
When there is a smaller age difference, our younger siblings might imitate our actions because they perceive a resemblance to themselves. On the other hand, when there is a larger age gap, our siblings might perceive us as someone to have high status or power, prompting them to model our behaviours.
Sounds familiar?
You might recollect interactions that demonstrate this influence from your own life. For example, as an older sibling, there may have been several instances where you were chastised by your parents or elders to behave appropriately to set an example for your brother or sister.
This is because younger siblings often look up to us, their older brother or sister and often try to emulate our behaviour. Setting a positive example helps in promoting positive behaviour which contributes towards the social and personal development of our younger sibling.
This is not just hearsay, it has been extensively researched as well.
Studies have identified that the academic achievement of the younger sibling is shaped by that of their older brother or sister. Even your career choices might be influenced by your older sibling, as research suggests that siblings of the same gender are more likely to pursue a similar field of study.
Additionally, studies have also documented the positive effect siblings have on each other's social, emotional and cognitive development. For example, older siblings play a very important role in helping our younger siblings develop their language skills as well as their problem-solving abilities. And since our interactions with them tend to involve activities such as sharing, caregiving and teaching, we contribute towards nurturing prosocial behaviour in them.
These beneficial effects are not exclusive to older children as research suggests that both older and younger siblings play a key role in developing and enhancing empathy and care for others. These findings help reiterate the importance of siblings in shaping one’s behaviour and development.
However, it is important to shed some light on the potential negative outcomes that come with sibling relationships as well particularly engaging in risky behaviour. For instance, studies suggest that younger sisters whose older siblings became teen mothers were five times more likely to become pregnant in their adolescence themselves. Similarly, older brothers and sisters play a role in the development of drinking and substance use behaviours among their younger siblings. These findings help show that while modelling one's older siblings can bring about positive change in behaviour and development, its negative effects too can have life-altering consequences as well.
How Do Siblings Shape Your Development Indirectly?
In addition to the direct contributions, it is important to also acknowledge the indirect role of siblings in one’s development. When we talk about indirect influences we refer to the impact that we have on other family members and the overall family dynamics, which in turn can affect our siblings as well.
Unlike direct influence, we have much to learn about the underlying mechanisms through which siblings shape our development indirectly. However, research tends to focus on two aspects in great detail. These centre around changes in parental interaction with subsequent children and preferential treatment of one child over the other. Let us explore these aspects in detail.
First-time parents might not be aware of the ins and outs of parenting and as a result, many tend to learn on the job, through their experiences. In these scenarios, we as the older children play a key role in not only shaping those experiences but also aid in increasing our parent’s knowledge and influencing their behaviour and setting expectations, all of which later impact our siblings.
This was observed in a 2002 study, which showed that parents who had already witnessed their first-born child's transition into adolescence are better equipped to set expectations for their subsequent children during this time regarding behavioural and emotional issues. Furthermore, research also indicates that parents are less likely to be in conflict and show more warmth to the second-born children compared to the first-born, likely because they were more knowledgeable and gained more experience the second time around.
This, however, can also have a severe negative side to it as studies indicate that younger siblings are more likely to engage in risky behaviour that their older ones due to lack of supervision from elders. While in the aforementioned examples, the influence might not be direct, these findings highlight how older siblings tend to affect parenting styles that subsequently impact their younger siblings.
Moving on from parental experiences, we can also observe the indirect contributions through the preferential treatment of one child to another. A sibling’s presence helps a child create a benchmark to ascertain if they are included, excluded, loved or rejected by their parents. As a result, if a child perceives sibling favouritism even if parents do not overtly demonstrate preferential treatment, it can have significant repercussions in their life.
For starters, it can result in a decline in the relationship quality between siblings often comprising more conflicts and less intimacy among them. Not just that, studies show that preferential treatment can result in lower self-esteem, greater incidents of aggression and anxiety along with greater depressive symptoms in the less favoured sibling. Lastly, this perception of being treated less favourably than one’s siblings among adolescents has also been associated with substance use and other delinquent behaviour. These findings help illustrate the indirect influence of siblings through preferential treatment can affect one's relationships and well-being.
Siblings tend to spend a significant portion of their time with one another and as a result play a vital role in influencing our development from academic achievement to language acquisition, prosocial behaviours and even risky behaviour. Regardless of whether the impact is positive or negative, one cannot deny the pivotal role that siblings play in our development. With this knowledge, we must harness the power of these relationships to promote healthy development among all individuals.
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