Siblings as confidants: Emotional understanding, relationship warmth, and sibling self-disclosure

Associations among (a) self-disclosures between early adolescent siblings, (b) emotional understanding, and (c) relationship warmth were investigated. Grade 5-6 children (M age = 11.5 years) were interviewed concerning the in cidence of disclosures to closest-in-age siblings (20 = older, 20 = younger ), feelings regarding disclosing (or not), and sibling relationship quality . Warmth was measured with the Sibling Relationship Questionnaire (Furman & Buhrmester, 1985) and emotional understanding was assessed with the Hypoth etical Relationships Picture Task (adapted from Schneider, 1989, & Aquan-As see, 1992). Hierarchical multiple regressions indicated self-disclosure was positively associated with feeling good about sharing and negatively assoc iated with reports of not trusting or not receiving emotional support from their sibling. Sibling relationship warmth was a key characteristic associa ted with both emotional understanding and self-disclosure; female target ch ildren demonstrated greater emotional understanding. Warmth, but not emotio nal understanding, was associated with self-disclosure. Findings are discus sed in light of the importance of links between affective relationships and children social-emotional understanding.