Sibling Proactive and Reactive Aggression in Adolescence
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Sibling Proactive and Reactive Aggression in Adolescence Corinna Jenkins Tucker & Genevieve Cox & Erin Hiley Sharp & Karen T. Van Gundy & Cesar Rebellon & Nena F. Stracuzzi
Published online: 26 October 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2012
Abstract We describe sibling proactive and reactive aggression in middle and late adolescence. Participants were 8th (n0303, Mage 013.74 years, SD0.59) and 12th (n0300, Mage 017.73 years, SD0.56) grade adolescents who completed an in-school survey. Findings revealed that these adolescents were significantly more likely to engage in reactive than proactive aggression with their closest-aged sibling. However, 8th grade adolescents reported greater aggression toward their closest-aged sibling than did 12th grade adolescents. In addition, sex composition of the sibling dyad moderated the association between sibling relationship quality (i.e., warmth and rivalry) and both proactive and reactive aggression indicating unique links for brotherbrother and older sister-younger brother pairs. Keywords Youth . Sex composition . Sex differences . Rivalry . Warmth
Sibling relationships are often characterized by an intensity of positive and negative emotions that are frequently and
This research was supported by the Neil and Louise Tillotson Fund of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. We are grateful to the youth who participated in this project. We thank our team members Eleanor Jaffee, Meghan Mills, and a group of graduate and undergraduate students. C. J. Tucker (*) : E. H. Sharp Department of Family Studies, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824, USA e-mail: [email protected] G. Cox : K. T. Van Gundy : C. Rebellon Department of Sociology, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA N. F. Stracuzzi School of Education, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA
freely expressed (Dunn 2007). Another feature of sibling relationships is that they are a context in which children and adolescents spend an extensive amount of time (McHale and Crouter 1996; Tucker et al. 2008). The emotional quality of sibling relationships, in combination with siblings’ extensive companionship and familiarity with each other, create great potential for siblings to be hostile and aggressive toward one another. In fact, national survey data reveal that sibling aggression is the most common form of family violence (Straus et al. 2006). Because siblings play such an important role in one another’s development and conflict resolution skills (Dunn 2007), the exploration of sibling aggression and its correlates is essential. Despite the high prevalence of sibling aggression, it has received little attention from researchers (Caspi 2008; Hardy et al. 2010). When studied, sibling aggression is most often examined in young children. However, adolescence is a period of marked increase in aggressive behavior for boys and girls (Moffitt et al. 2001). Although adolescents are increasingly involved with peers, siblings remain frequent companions (Tucker et al. 2008) and reta
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