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Received March 1, 2002; revised October 3, 2002; accepted September 25, 2003
Utilizing longitudinal, 3-wave data collected from multiple informants (fathers, mothers, and target children) in 374 families, the potential effects of sibling relationships on adolescent development across early and middle adolescence were investigated. Adolescents who perceived their sibling relationships more positively at Time 1 tended to have better friendships and higher self-esteem at Time 2, which, in turn, were associated with less loneliness, less depression, and fewer delinquent behaviors and less substance use at Time 3. Moreover, a bidirectional relationship was found between adolescent self-esteem and the quality of their sibling relationships, suggesting that a more positive sibling relationship helps to enhance adolescent self-esteem, and that higher adolescent self-esteem predicts a more positive sibling relationship. A bidirectional relationship was also found between adolescent sibling relationships and adolescent friendships. However, a much stronger association between adolescent sibling relationships at Time 1 and adolescent friendships at Time 2, than between adolescent friendships at Time 1 and adolescent sibling relationships at Time 2, may suggest that the quality of an earlier sibling relationship is more predictive of the quality of a later friendship for adolescents rather than the other way around.
KEY WORDS: adolescent development; longitudinal, perceived sibling relationships; structural equation modeling.
INTRODUCTION
Research on adolescence has recognized the importance and the necessity of studying adolescent development in the contexts in which it occurs (Grotevant, 1999). A very important context for adolescent development that receives much attention from contemporary researchers is the family. The family is viewed, from the viewpoint of family systems theory, as a social system consisting of different subsystems (Minuchin, 1988; Sameroff, 1983, 1994). Among the family subsystems, the parent-child and marital subsystems have traditionally received a tremendous amount of attention from researchers in documenting their important effects on adolescent development. Research results have consistently indicated that adolescents whose parents are warm and firm (i.e., authoritative) are more psychosocially mature and competent, and have better school performance and more successful adjustment in adolescence than their peers who have been raised in authoritarian, indulgent, or indifferent homes (Steinberg, 2002; Steinberg and Morris, 2001). Authoritative parents provide adolescents with a balanced context in which adolescents have opportunities for developing autonomy under structured guidelines and appropriate...