ABSTRACT
There has been considerable speculation in both popular and scientific journals on the effects of sibling status. Much of the discussion has focused on the implications of being born first or second, being far apart or close in age, and having a same or opposite-sex sibling. The effects of sibling status are often described as resulting from some aspect of interaction between the siblings. For example, White (1975) argues that greater age spacing is preferable because there will be less direct competition for resources; Zajonc and Markus (1975) argue that differences in intelligence may partly reflect the opportunity older children have to teach their younger siblings. However, the speculation on the implications of sibling interaction is not matched by data on the actual behavior of siblings in their homes. In this chapter we shall summarize our attempt to provide such data. Thus the basic goal of our research has been to provide information on patterns of interaction between siblings in a natural environment. We were also interested in whether such variables as the sex and age of the individual children, the sex composition of the dyad, and the age interval between siblings would affect patterns of interaction. (See Abramovitch, Corter, & Lando, 1979; Abramovitch, Corter, & Pepler, 1980; and Pepler, Abramovitch & Corter, 1981, for more complete details.) To simplify the problem somewhat we limited our observations to families with two preschool-aged children. We observed same-sex and mixed-sex dyads in which the children were separated by either a large interval (2% to 4 years) or a small interval (1 to 2 years). Sex of the individual, the sex composition of the dyad, and interval were included as factors in the design because it has been suggested in the literature that these factors might have effects on sibling interaction. Age of sibling within the dyad (younger and older) was also expected to affect the child's behavior because this factor includes age and birth-order differences and both might affect patterns of interaction.
