Speaking of Psychology - How our siblings influence our lives, with Laurie Kramer, PhD, and Megan Gilligan, PhD

Episode Date: March 2, 2022

Our brothers and sisters are our first friends and first rivals, and the relationships that we have with our siblings are often the longest lasting relationships of our lives. Laurie Kramer, PhD, of Northeastern University, and Megan Gilligan, PhD, of Iowa State University, talk about how our siblings influence our lives from childhood through adulthood, how parents can help foster close relationships among their children, and what people can do in adulthood to maintain and improve relationships with their own siblings. Show Links Laurie Kramer, PhD Megan Gilligan, PhD funwithsistersandbrothers.org Speaking of Psychology Homepage Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The relationships that we have with our siblings are often the longest-lasting relationships of our lives. Brothers and sisters are our first childhood playmates and our first rivals. In adulthood, siblings can be a source of friendship and emotional support. They're the only other people in the world who remember and understand exactly what it was like to grow up within our family. Yet despite their importance, sibling relationships are often overlooked and understudied, are seen as less important than other relationships such as romantic partnerships and parent-child bonds.

But psychologists and other researchers have insights to offer on how our siblings influence our lives from childhood through adulthood. So how can we get the most out of these relationships? How do our siblings affect us as children and as adults? What can parents do to help foster close relationships among their children? When parents play favorites, how does that affect the sibling bond? What can people do in adulthood to maintain and improve relationships with their own siblings? And what does the research say about the diverse types of sibling relationships that are more common than ever, such as half-siblings, step-siblings, and others?

Welcome to Speaking of Psychology, the flagship podcast of the American Psychological Association that examines the links between psychological science and everyday life. I'm Kim Mills. We have two guests today. Dr. Lori Kramer, a professor of applied psychology at Northe, Eastern University and Emeritus Professor of Applied Family Studies at the University of Illinois, has studied sibling relationships for decades. She focuses on how young children can develop positive relationships with their siblings. Her findings have been widely cited in media outlets, including The New York Times, Time magazine, and the Today Show, just to give a few examples.

She's the creator of the More Fun with Sisters and Brothers program, which teaches children and parents, skills and strategies for building strong, positive sibling relationships. Our second guest is Dr. Megan Gilligan, an associate professor in human development and family studies at Iowa State University. Dr. Gilligan studies the links between family relationships and well-being with a particular interest in siblings. She's looked at how people's relationships with their siblings affect their health and well-being in middle and later life. She's also studied how people's perceptions of parental favoritism affect their relationships with their siblings. into adulthood. Dr. Kramer and Dr. Gillian, thank you for joining us. Thank you so much for having us.

Yes, it's good to be here. So let's start with the broad question I raised in the introduction, which is how important are sibling relationships. Dr. Kramer, let me start with you because much of your research is on how to help children build positive relationships with their siblings. Why is this important? What do siblings add to our lives? And how do sibling relationships affect our development, health, and well-being? I think you've answered this question in so many ways, Kim, these are our lifelong partners. And I think it's really sometimes overlooked how important these relationships are. Your siblings, your brothers and sisters, they are with you throughout this life journey.

They are people who really understand you, both your flaws as well as your strengths and assets. And they use that in many ways. But they're truly the individuals that we learn with. We develop so much of our character, of learning how to negotiate various social situations, other life challenges, and they teach us so much in so many ways. Dr. Gillian, let me ask you this. How much do the relationships that we have with our siblings carry through from childhood to adulthood?

And do siblings who are close as children tend to remain close as adults? Yeah, so this is something that we're really starting to understand more, but it's a growing area of research. And so we do know that most individuals continue to maintain sibling relationships throughout their life course. So they maintain contact, exchange support. They engage in conflict as well as express feelings of closeness. So multidimensional relationships across the life course.

But one of the things we're starting to understand is that there may be some points in our life that siblings are more salient than others. So it does appear maybe adolescence as a time when we, maybe we're living at home together, we're sharing more experiences. Maybe as we grow and leave parental homes, maybe they kind of fall back a little bit compared to other relationships. But there is emerging research showing that we come back together with our siblings, certainly in later middle life as we age.

And so this idea of them being a lifelong relationship, it may vary across the life, course, but becoming even more salient as we enter into our later lives. So do siblings who fight a lot as kids and teens tend to have more difficult relationships as adults, or do they grow out of that and do the relationships get better as they get older? Yeah. So I would say in our family relationships in general, we do tend to see quite a bit of continuity. So there are some changes in our dynamics, but those patterns that we establish earlier in life, it's not often that we see them drastically change. As we develop and Dr. Kramer talks about interventions,

maybe we can make modifications in our relationships, but research in general shows there is quite a bit of stability or continuity. Of course, though, we also encounter different life events and circumstances that can change those relationships. So our transitions as we might into romantic relationships, we might have children of our own, we might as we get older also have different relationships with our parents and inter-caregiving. So those life transitions and events may cause changes. But for the most part, the patterns that we establish early,

we do see that we often carry them with us kind of throughout our life course. So if you were distant from your brother as kids, even when you grow up, you probably are not going to get super close. That's what you're saying. Yes, unless there was something, an outside intervention or something within your family that kind of changed that relationship, most of the time if you have a distance, absent, conflictual relationship, you're going to see stability in that. Same with if you have a really close solid foundation.

That's going to probably carry with you throughout the life course as well. We've seen that as well early in development too. So I've studied the beginnings of sibling relationships, looking at what it was like as this new child entered the family and followed these families until the older child was leaving the household for college or work. And so a great deal of continuity in the degree to which they interacted positively at every time point that we went to observe what was going on. I agree with Dr. Gilligan that unless there's someone, life force, some therapy, counseling, some intervention, we're most likely to see continuity in that quality, meaning that kids who are getting along pretty well tend to continue to do so, but those who are not tend to continue to have difficulties.

So following up a little bit, Dr. Kramer, in one interview with you that I listened to, you quoted kind of a striking number that young children on average have seven and a half disputes with their siblings per hour. It seems like fighting between young siblings is normal and frequent. But that's outrageous. I mean, I know I fought with my brothers like crazy, but seven and a half disputes per hour. And that's an average.

How did you measure that? Well, you know, we go into family's homes. We bring tape recorders or video recorders. We have all the adults leave and just listen to what kids actually do with one another. It's always astounding to hear. what kids talk about and what they do and what they play. But I was very interested, not so much in just arguments and conflicts that kids had, but those that were extended. So, you know, a lot of times a child might say something negative to a brother or sister and it just gets dropped.

Nothing happens. I didn't even count those. I was just looking at the ones where it was what I called extended. The other child reciprocated also with something negative, a negative affect or negative behavior. And we observed quite a lot in this age group. I do believe that number declines as children get older. I think that study was about three and a half year olds to six or seven year olds, if I'm remembering correctly. So it was pretty early in childhood. So this is happening quite a lot. But what was also astounding was that children don't seem to have the skills at that age to be able to manage conflicts on their own. And that is something that children can learn, that we can teach them, and that really makes a difference. And parents play a tremendous role

in helping children to acquire those skills and use them. So what should parents do when kids are fighting the way that you observe? Should they let them sort of fight it out among themselves, or should they intervene? How do you know when it's right to do one or the other? I did this fun study where we wired up children with wireless microphones and let them go anywhere in their homes. I have some adorable photos of kids doing this. And we asked one day, a mother, to be in the kitchen listening to what was going on and another day of father doing this.

We also had a day, a practice day, just so everybody could get used to this process. And it was so interesting because we knew that the parents. could hear that the kids were fighting. There was no excuse. And they were listening to what the kids were doing and making a decision right then and there about whether to go intervene or not. This, I would say, was fascinating because before the study began, we asked them to complete a questionnaire about what they thought were the best strategies for intervening or not intervening when kids fight. And what they told us across the board was that letting kids work it out on their own was not an effective strategy. What they thought was most effective was joining the children

and having a discussion about what was going on and asking each child to basically say what was happening for them and help them work it out. However, what they actually did under these circumstances was totally the opposite of what they told us was most effective. We also asked them, you know, is it hard? Is it easy to do each of these strategies? And what we learned was that while they believe that it's most effective to intervene to help moderate and mediate these conflicts with children, they don't know how to do it.

So here you go. And that's, again, something that we can help parents do. But to answer your question, Kim, I would say that if you have young children, and in general I'm talking about children under the age of eight, it's very likely that they don't yet possess the skills to manage these conflicts on their own. And what we see is that when parents don't intervene, the conflict just continues. And it often escalates and becomes awful for kids and potentially dangerous for kids. kids. When parents intervene, there's a much greater likelihood that children are going to be able to successfully manage the conflict with parental coaching at that moment. Once parents are confident that their children do have the skills to manage these conflicts on their own, that's an opportunity

for parents to go and remind their kids that they need to work it out. So I would say it's a little of it subtle, but we do need to take into account the developmental levels of children when we give advice to parents. That makes complete sense. But what about the idea of like pulling the kids apart and saying, all right, that's it. You go here and you go there and you can't see each other for the next hour. Is that an effective strategy? We looked at separating kids. We looked at threatening kids with punishment. When parents follow through with that punishment or just one at the threat. We looked at other ways that parents sometimes use power their control to try to manage the kids' behaviors. And we saw that for the most part kids continue to find a way to

engage in conflict. It does not lead to constructive forms of conflict management. And again, I think an important point, too, is that it's not that we want to eliminate all forms of conflict between children. Conflict to actually serve some very important developmental functions. for children. They learn a lot by fighting, and they learn a lot by fighting with their siblings. And it's a very safe relationship for them to figure out how to do this, right? How to stand their ground in argue things. But really what we're looking for is helping children to develop the skills and competencies they need in order to successfully manage those conflicts so that they can have reasonable disagreements with a sibling, stand their ground,

talk about their point of view, not necessarily give in to a more powerful sibling. But to do that in the midst of also having very positive interactions with their sibling. How do family dynamics like gender and family size influence sibling relationships? So, for example, whether you've got brothers or sisters or a large family with a lot of kids or maybe there's only one sibling, How do these family constellations lead to closer or more distant sibling relationships? I think across the life course, we noticed that sister-sister pairs do tend to be closer. So we notice that at different stages of development. But one of the things that we notice in the adult literature, and I think this may be true for the earlier literature as well,

women are also more likely to engage in conflict with each other. So they may have these close relationships, but they also may have more intense conflict. So they're kind of involved in these more intense relationships with one another. So we noticed this with mother-daughter relationships, but also in our work on sister relationships as well. So I would think that is one factor. And then you also mentioned the sibling size. And we kind of know the more, the more people you bring into a group, you're kind of bringing in different perspectives and different personalities. And there can be more opportunity for conflict and engagement in conflict, the more people you bring in. So we do notice some of that in our work as well. The larger subships, trying to navigate those

relationships and negotiate those relationships with more people can result in higher levels of conflict. What about when there's an odd number of kids in the family and they start building factions against each other? I mean, how do you deal with that? Yes, we sometimes refer to this as coalition building. We notice this in other aspects of our lives. And siblings can do the same thing. So if we can get someone on our side in these arguments or tension that we've been talking about, then we can have a coalition. And so that can be a sense of power in sibling relationships. And something definitely that we see as researchers and also something to think about when intervening or navigating in sibling relationships. It's also a strength, though, to be able to form a coalition with a sibling.

To get somebody on your side, it's the developmental achievement in a lot of different ways for kids to be able to manipulate the situation, if you will, in some way. So it's not always a bad thing, but yeah. Yes, I completely agree. Yes, it's a dynamic to be aware of, but can be a useful tool for siblings to navigate. How much do we know about relationships with step siblings or half siblings or other kinds of people being brought into a household and acting as it? if their brothers and sisters mean being raised as children together?

What do we know about the dynamics of those relationships? There's so much more we need to learn. These are very complex relationships. Not all siblings live together. And I think that, you know, number one, makes a huge difference. So when there's a remarried family, for example, some siblings may never live together. And it's really interesting even just to ask them whether they consider themselves to be, you know, full siblings, half siblings or not even. We now know that there are a lot of individuals out there who are biologically related as siblings that they didn't even know existed.

And that is absolutely fascinating. Adoptive families, foster families. there's so many different variations. We have so much more to learn. I would say a great deal depends on how, especially in early childhood, how parents talk about these relationships and introduce family members to one another or treat them kind of weighs into some of those issues about parental favoritism and differential treatment in very, very important ways. And I would say in the adulthood literature, this is something we have not thought or been looking at as much, but as the phenomenon of what we sometimes refer to as the gray divorce increases. So people getting divorced later in life and remarried and repartnered later in life, you may acquire step siblings in adulthood. And so what does that look like and what does that look like in terms of navigating later life caregiving or

dividing assets. So it's something that we definitely need to pay more attention to and more and more people are experiencing in their lives. So it's popular these days to talk about birth order as having an influence on a person's trajectory in life. There are some people who believe that the firstborn child will be a leader, but also neurotic. Middle children and I confess I am one will be the peacemaker and that the baby in the family is going to be more self-centered. I mean, these are just some of the stereotypes that are out there. Is there any good research to back up or to refute these thoughts? I tend to stray away from this idea of birth order is sort of a horoscope, of thinking about just because you are this birth order, you're going to be, behave in a particular

way or have particular characteristics or personalities. Instead, I like to think about the family environment in which children are brought into. So if you are a firstborn child, you're coming into a family where maybe there's two parents, maybe there's other adults in the household, but there's probably no other children. It's you. And your experience of being raised by these adults who are highly motivated to make sure that you're safe and healthy and happy is a unique experience, something that that child may have for maybe a couple of years or maybe throughout their childhood. But I think it's really that that family environment and the ways that adults are motivated to engage with that child that makes a difference. As a second child or third child

enters the household, you're talking about parents who are more experienced. This is not their first rodeo. They may have some ideas and expectations for how the second child might be and what that's going to be like raising that child. However, the experience of being a second time parent is, I think, really unique because it's not just adding another child and, you know, doing more diapers and feeding yet another child. It's learning how to nurture this new relationship between children who are very young and don't really have a lot of skills for building and sustaining a positive relationship. And it can create a lot of stress and anxiety for parents as well. As a third child, fourth child enters, again, the family environment is going to look very different

because the parents do have more experience. They understand what it's like to nurture relationships among children. And they have other life skills. So I think in some ways, you know, it's really interesting to think about how families evolve as subsequent children enter it and then later leave it. Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And we tend to think of siblings and we'll say, and I might have already said this today, They share a household, they share an environment, but they also have unique experiences

depending on the things that Dr. Kramer just described. And some of that may carry through that if you're a firstborn, you may be the first to leave the parental home. You may have certain expectations and you may serve as a role model for your other siblings. So there are those things that are happening or maybe other family transitions happen in your childhood that didn't happen in your brother or sister's childhood. So we have a shared environment, but we also have unique experiences. And I think birth order plays a role in how we experience our family relationships. Let's talk for a minute about parental favoritism, which is something

that you've both studied. Children often feel that their parents have a favorite child. Is this really as common as kids think? And is it a big problem? And how does it affect siblings' relationships with one another? Well, I can talk about it from the adolescent perspective. We've done some interesting studies looking at adolescence perceptions of being treated the same or differently by their mothers and fathers. And we've learned a lot. We learned that, first of all, that children don't always expect to be treated the same

as a brother or sister, but they do expect to be treated fairly. and they really want their parents to recognize who they are as individuals, what their needs and characteristics and interests are, and to work towards meeting those. When they see that a sibling is being treated differently than them, they think about it and they judge it and they form attributions to try to understand why that is. And most importantly, they look at whether they think it's fair or not.

If they can come up with a good reason for why their brother got that new set of pajamas and they didn't, they're cool with it. If they can understand why they get a later bedtime than a younger sibling and can come up with a reasonable explanation for that, they're fine with that. But what was also fascinating was that we asked the same questions of their mothers and fathers. And we learned that when you're looking at four people in a family, two parents, two siblings, in adolescence, they don't always agree about what's even. happening. In fact, they agreed maybe about 33% of the time. And I found that absolutely fascinating. They could talk about these events, but they didn't always agree what was happening, who was being

treated better, and they also reported that they rarely talk about differential treatment. What I find remarkable about this is I have studied parental differential treatment or favoritism. in middle age, into people's 60s. So a much different stage of a life course, and what we find is very consistent. So children, adult children in this case, often perceive favoritism, and they will be able to articulate that.

Similarly, if they feel that it's just or fair, it doesn't seem to be as consequential, but if they do not perceive that it is just or fair, it has large consequences for their relationships with their sibling and also their psychological well-being. But we also asked their parents, their perceptions of children that they perceive to be most emotionally close to. We ask questions about preferences for caregiving. So the adult children's perception and the parents' perceptions are, again, not very consistent. So these families are all an agreement that it's happening. They're aware. There's the sense that it's there in the family,

but where it actually is directed toward or what is happening, very little agreement. I would say, I guess, about the same, around 30%. So maybe these are also patterns that are carrying out throughout the life course. So it's not unusual to grow up and kind of say to your brother or sister, boy, where did you grow up? It's not my experience at all. Mom always liked you better anyway. Yeah, and that we would carry those feelings with us for decades of our lives. But when we ask, so these are older mothers and fathers that we're asking in their 70s and 80s, they're expressing favoritism, but it is not matching their kids' perception, their adult children's perceptions of favoritism.

What can parents do to be more aware of this with their kids so that they're not really treating them differently, that they're treating them fairly? I think opening up conversation about these issues is really important. I was stunned by the fact that family members said that they rarely talked about these issues. Children and adolescents may say that they complain about these issues, and parents may actually acknowledge that their kids have complained about unfair treatment. But parents also report quickly dismissing those concerns or defending their behavior. Instead of, you know, opening up conversation about it, asking, what makes you feel that, you know, I favored your brother in this circumstance?

Let's talk about it. Because I do think that whereas children need to have some help in creating some accurate attributions about why their parents behaved in particular ways, that can happen through conversations with parents. but I think parents also need to be open to the idea that perhaps they need to have a better sense of how some of their choices and behaviors have been perceived by their children. And if they understood that, that might lead them to change some of their behaviors. I would also add, especially in my experience, maybe professionals working with later life families can be aware that these preferences also exist and to help to facilitate these types of conversations. because if families are not having them when adult children are middle-aged and parents are

older, they have gone decades without having these conversations. But now we know from our research that it's having consequences for how these families are navigating later life care. And so maybe if we could facilitate these types of conversations and intervene at that point, we can maybe repair some of these issues to create better. later life experiences. So how much does it matter if siblings are close in age or far apart in age? What does that do to the dynamic? And are kids who are closer in age emotionally closer to each other? Or is that just a recipe for more squabbling in competition? Both. You can find studies that will support all of those hypotheses, to be honest.

You know, there's some advantages to being close in age to a sibling because you may have similar experiences, see the world in similar ways, be able to really help one another. But there's also some advantages to having a sibling who's, you know, substantially older or younger. It offers opportunities to help, to teach, to give care, learn all of those skills. as well. But what I do like to tell parents is that making that decision about how to space your children, if they're lucky enough to be able to make a decision around that in the first place, is only one decision that they may get to make. Every day, they have countless opportunities

and countless decisions they can make about things that they can do to help their children find ways to develop a positive relationship with one another. Yeah, I agree completely. And I was just going to add to, yeah, so advantages and disadvantages to the spacing and you'll find different research. There is some research to show, too, that maybe parents who have children who are a little further spaced apart may be able to give more resources to the individual children. So maybe some of these feelings of fairness or justice might be affected by spacing. But really, yes, if parents are thinking ahead to make these choices. And when we get into adulthood, it kind of equals out a little bit that now everyone is in adulthood.

So I think we see less of that in the adult literature. So Dr. Kramer, you have this program, the more fun with sisters and brothers. Can you talk a little bit about that and how that works and maybe tell our listeners how they might access some of those tools that you've created? Yes, absolutely. So I've been studying the factors that predict good sibling relationships. positive sibling relationships, not perfect sibling relationships. And we've identified a set of competencies and skills that we think are highly predictive of positive relationships over time.

And so we've taken that information and translated it into a program for children and for parents. So I, for many years, offered an in-person program, a version of more fun with siblings. sisters and brothers, where we brought in children, siblings from three or four families, created a group and directly taught kids these skills. Parents would watch from a viewing area, and I'd sit with the parents and explain what we were doing and coached parents so that they could keep up these skills at home and help their kids really learn how to apply them and when they needed to use them. It was very effective for increasing positivity in siblings,

relationships, helping kids learn how to manage conflict. And most importantly, I think, helping kids manage some of the negative emotions that come with frustrating sibling relationships. I realized that as great as the program seemed to be, we were only able to access a limited number of people at one time with this program. And we were limited in terms of geography. So we now have it as an online program for parents. So we're teaching the same sorts of skills, but now we're teaching parents how to, what these skills are, what's really important about them, and how they can use them with their own children to actually be the teachers and coaches themselves. So we're doing an online study of this right now. Interested parents can take a look at fun with sisters and brothers.

org. The program is designed for families who have two children between the ages of four to eight years. So that's the target group. And you need to speak English or feel comfortable reading in English and listening in English. But beyond that, we've been really excited that as an online vehicle, we have participants from all over the world engaged with us. So it is a research study. So we do ask parents to complete a set of questionnaires for us at the beginning, middle, and end of the program. But it's a self-paced four-lusson program. And we're excited to have more families during us. And Dr. Gillian, for those of us who didn't have the benefit of a program like this as kids, I mean, what do we do as adults to make our relationships better?

short of psychotherapy, which I know works, but are there any other resources out there that could help people who want to have better relationships as adults with their siblings? Yeah, so one of the things that my colleagues and I talk about is as maybe we as researchers are developing, hopefully, those type of resources, it is something to be aware of. So being aware of your sibling relationships and how they may be impacting your well-being. And we have been talking a lot publicly about how do we incorporate this into family therapy? How do we make sure that professionals working with families are aware of, you know, thinking about your romantic relationships, thinking about maybe your work relationships, but your sibling relationships might be a place that you also need to work on and think about.

So I think just raising awareness that your sibling relationships and adulthood may be impacting your psychological and physical health and being willing to talk about that and being open to discussion about that. So what are the next frontiers in these areas? What are you both looking at? Where do we have to go? I mean, I'm always asking questions about COVID. I'm sure that COVID and everybody being locked up together for two years is going to have some interesting impacts on sibling relationships. Is that? anything that you're looking at right now? I think it's been really important to have an online tool to share with families during COVID. We've been really impressed with the interest among parents, but also providers and educators, you know, who are very sensitive to the fact that, you know, especially during lockdown, this was really a critical issue for families. What do we do all day?

and, you know, when kids are unhappy with one another, that just creates a very difficult family environment. So I think understanding these different contexts are really going to be very important. I feel that the developmental approach kind of, you know, reflected in Dr. Gilligan's work and my own is so important. I've spent so much time with four to eight-year-olds. I'm ready to go to eight to 12-year-olds soon. Adolescence, what can we do? But I do believe that prevention is certainly a very important tool. And as we really come to appreciate the value and importance of sibling relationships across the life course, I do believe that we'll do a better job of helping families be much more proactive in helping their kids find productive ways to get along

and be equipped to manage the conflicts that are inevitable. Yeah, I agree completely. My colleagues and I are doing some work right now where we're following sibling relationships from adolescents into middle age. And one of the emerging findings is that we carry those early relationships with us on our well-being outcomes. And so I think, you know, as we move past this idea of, well, we kind of grow out of that or that's just, that's just kids stuff. But no, these are relationships we carry with us or adulthood, and we carry the consequences with them. I will share too. I'm also working on research right now during COVID.

We're with adult siblings who are providing care to older parents with dementia, Alzheimer's disease and related dementia. And we are also using technology and realizing how increasingly dependent over the last two years siblings have become on using video conferencing and phone to communicate with each other to navigate care for older parents. I think technology is playing an increasingly important role in maintaining sibling relationships and also for siblings to do the tasks that they need to do together. Well, I want to thank you both for joining me today.

This has been really interesting. I could go on for another 40 minutes, but I very much appreciate your joining me today. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yes, thank you for having us. You can learn more about Dr. Kramer's and Dr. Gilligan's work in the March issue of APA's magazine monitor on psychology. Find a link in our show notes at www. www. speaking of psychology.org. You can also find previous episodes of

Speaking of Psychology there or on Apple, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you listen on Apple, please leave us a review. If you have comments or ideas for future podcasts, you can email us at speaking of psychology at a.pa.org. That's Speaking of Psychology all one word at a.pa.org. Speaking of Psychology is produced by Lee Winerman. Our sound editor is Chris Kandayan. Thank you for listening. For the American Psychological Association, I'm Kim Mills.