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Temperament and sibling relationships: The mediating effect of social competence and behavior

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Abstract

We investigated sibling relationships, temperament, and social competence and behavior of first-born and second-born children in China. A total of 212 Chinese children (M = 4.52, SD = .88) completed Sibling Relationships Scale, Temperament Scale, and Social Competence and Behavior Evaluation Scale. The results indicated that (1) for the first-born children, temperament subscales were positively related to their social competence and behavior, but had nothing to do with their sibling relationships, and children’s sibling relationships were not significantly associated with their social competence and behavior; (2) for the second-born children, there was a fully mediating effect of implicit behavioral problems and explicit behavioral problems between emotionality of temperament and sibling warmth. The implications of the study were discussed.

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Funding

This study was supported by the Project of Municipal Science and Technology Commission of Beijing, China (19530050130); 2016 project of humanities and social science projects of Educational Commission of Hubei Province (16Y169).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Preschool Education, Capital Normal University, No. 5, North Third Street, Fucheng Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100048, China

    Guoying Qian

  2. Anhuali No.2 Kindergarten, Beijing, 100011, China

    Xin Chen

  3. Department of Applied Psychology, College of Psychiatry, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, 325035, China

    Suo Jiang

  4. First Kindergarten of Xi’an Gaoxin, Xi’an, 710075, China

    Xianmei Guo

  5. School of Psychology, Capital Normal University, Beijing, 100037, China

    Li Tian

  6. School of Education, HuBei University of arts and science, Xiangyang, 441053, China

    Gang Dou

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  1. Guoying Qian
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Correspondence to Guoying Qian.

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Qian, G., Chen, X., Jiang, S. et al. Temperament and sibling relationships: The mediating effect of social competence and behavior. Curr Psychol 41, 6147–6153 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-01080-w

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