CHILDRENS PERCEPTIONS OF THE SIBLING RELATIONSHIP IN MIDDLE CHILDHOOD- CONNECTIONS WITHIN AND BETWEEN FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS

Although sibling warmth and hostility have been shown to be statistica lly independent, they are intertwined in children's everyday experienc es. We developed a multidimensional characterization of children's per ceptions of their sibling relationships and examined differences in ot her family relationship measures as a function of different combinatio ns of sibling hostility and warmth. Participants included 91 firstborn children between 10 and 11 years of age with younger siblings between 6 and 10 years of age. Children reported their levels of satisfaction , intimacy, and rivalry in their sibling relationships and their satis faction with parent-child relationships. Parents rated their marriages . As compared with children in families with ''affect-intense'' siblin g relationships (high hostility/high warmth), children in ''hostile'' sibling relationships (high hostility/low warmth) rated their sibling and parent-child relationships more negatively, and their parents rate d their marriages more negatively. Results are discussed in terms of t he role of hostility in sibling experiences and the importance of unde rstanding multidimensional patterns in the sibling relationship.