Destructive sibling conflict and the development of conduct problems in young boys

Little empirical work has explored the relation between destructive sibling conflict and conduct problems in children. This study used a measure of ob served sibling conflict to examine its relations with maternal and teacher report of conduct problems in a low-income sample of 180 five-year-old boys and their close-age siblings. Early report of behavior problems and reject ing parenting were added to the analyses to control for these predictors an d to examine interactive effects. The interaction between destructive sibli ng conflict and rejecting parenting predicted aggressive behavior problems across time and informants such that a rise in aggression scores was eviden t for children who had high levels of both sibling conflict and rejecting p arenting. Sibling conflict was also directly related longitudinally to the Child Behavior Checklist Delinquency factor. Results are discussed in terms of additive risk models and G. R. Patterson's (1984, 1986) theory of coerc ion.