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.
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Author’s contributions:
AJ contributed to this study by working on the conceptualization, analysis, and writing of the manuscript. SM conducted data collect, and helped with conceptualization and writing of the manuscript. AP helped with the literature search and writing. All authors read and have approved the final manuscript.
Funding:
This work was funded by grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01-HD32336 and R01-HD29409) to Ann C. Crouter and Susan M. McHale, coprincipal investigators.
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Jensen, A.C., McHale, S.M. & Pond, A.M. Parents’ Social Comparisons of Siblings and Youth Problem Behavior: A Moderated Mediation Model. J Youth Adolescence 47, 2088–2099 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-018-0865-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-018-0865-y