Family squabbles are to be expected, especially during times of holiday togetherness. But a new study suggests that seemingly simple conflicts between adolescent siblings can have negative consequences for teens’ later emotional well-being.
Researchers report that conflicts about personal space and property, such as borrowing items without asking and hanging around when older siblings have friends over, are associated with increased anxiety and lower self-esteem in teens a year later. And fights over issues of fairness and equality, such as whose turn it is to do chores, are associated with later depression in teens.
Not all sibling conflicts are equal, and not all “influence adolescent adjustment in the same way,” says Nicole Campione-Barr, an assistant professor of psychological sciences at the University of Missouri and lead author of the study, published today in the journal Child Development.
“Previous research has examined the impact of frequency and intensity of conflicts between siblings, but not how different types of conflict might impact individual adjustment,” she says.
Using interviews and questionnaires, Campione-Barr and colleagues had 145 pairs of siblings (average ages 15 and 12) rate different topics of possible conflict with their sibling, noting the frequency and intensity of the arguments.
When researchers examined correlations between the arguments and teens’ self-reports of depressed mood, anxiety and self-esteem after one year, topics related to fairness and equality and invasion of personal domain were most common.
“Fights about borrowing things without asking, going into my room without asking, and other issues about privacy invasion, such as being around when my friends are over, are particularly important for adolescents because this is a time in their lives when they’re striving for independence and autonomy from the family,” says Campione-Barr.
Feeling as though someone’s always looking over your shoulder or constantly tagging along and never giving you personal space “is going to make you anxious and nervous and concerned about whether you’re your own person and whether you’ll ever get to do your own thing,” she says. “And it will have a similar impact on self-esteem as well.”
Conflicts associated with fairness are mostly about “shared resources and responsibilities within the family,” she adds. “If there are a lot of these conflicts, and if they are particularly frequent, it’s more likely an indication that one sibling is not getting a fair share of the family pie.”