Adolescents' Relationships to Siblings and Mothers: A Multivariate Genetic Analysis

Research has consistently demonstrated that children's behavior toward their siblings tends to resemble interactions occurring in the parent-child relationship. This study examined the relative contributions of genetic and environmental influences to the covariation between sibling relationship...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Developmental psychology 1999-09, Vol.35 (5), p.1248-1259
Main Authors: Bussell, Danielle A, Neiderhiser, Jenae M, Pike, Alison, Plomin, Robert, Simmens, Sam, Howe, George W, Hetherington, E. Mavis, Carroll, Elizabeth, Reiss, David
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adolescent Behavior - physiology
Adolescent Behavior - psychology
Adolescent Development
Adolescents
Analysis
Behavior
Biological and medical sciences
Biological Family
Child
Child psychology
Children & youth
Couple and family
Environment
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Genetics
Home Environment
Human
Humans
Interpersonal relationships
Male
Mother Child Relations
Mothers
Nature Nurture
Nature Nurture Controversy
Parent Child Relationship
Personal relationships
Psychology, Adolescent
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Relationship
Sibling Relations
Sibling Relationship
Siblings
Social psychology
Stepfamily
Surveys and Questionnaires
Twins
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Research has consistently demonstrated that children's behavior toward their siblings tends to resemble interactions occurring in the parent-child relationship. This study examined the relative contributions of genetic and environmental influences to the covariation between sibling relationships and mother-adolescent relationships. Reported and observed family interactions were assessed for 719 same-sex sibling pairs of varying degrees of genetic relatedness. The covariance between mother-adolescent and sibling interactions was decomposed into genetic, shared, and nonshared environmental components. The overlapping effects of shared environment on the two relationship subsystems explained most of the covariance. Smaller but significant genetic and nonshared environmental effects were also found. The consistency of these findings with family processes, such as modeling, is discussed.
ISSN:0012-1649
1939-0599
DOI:10.1037/0012-1649.35.5.1248