You will probably have to track down the journal, but this is what it says online:
Child Development
Volume 64 Issue 1, Pages 152 – 168
Published Online: 28 Jun 2008
Journal Compilation © 2009 The Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.
Published on behalf of the Society for Research in Child Development
Sibling Differences in Divorced Families
Susanne C. Monahan 1 , Christy M. Buchanan 1 , Eleanor E. Maccoby 1 , Sanford M. Dornbusch 1
1 Stanford University
Address correspondence to the authors at the Center for the Study of Families, Children, and Youth, Stanford University, Building 460, Stanford, CA 94305–2135.
This research was supported by the W.T. Grant Foundation, grant 88119688 to Eleanor E. Maccoby and Sanford M. Dornbusch. We would like to thank Sue Dimicelli for her technical assistance, and two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and constructive comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
Copyright 1993 by the Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.
ABSTRACT
Sibling differences in family processes and individual adjustment were examined for 133 sibling pairs (10–18 years old) in divorced families. Although all siblings differed, siblings who lived apart after their parents’ divorce differed more than siblings who lived together, contradicting past research that found negligible effects of shared environment on sibling similarities. The possibility that siblings might live apart because they were initially more different was considered. This hypothesis was not supported in the limited tests permitted by the data. Differences in family processes were associated with differences in adjustment for pairs who lived together as well as pairs who lived apart.
The link to the full article is here, but in case your computer won’t accept the site cookie, this is the Discussion section and sources, some of which you might want to look up as well:
Discussion
The sample of siblings from divorced
families offered an opportunity to examine
the shared and nonshared environments of
adolescents, and their relation to sibling
differences in adjustment. Contrary to the
conclusions of some past researchers (e.g.,
Daniels et al., 1985; Dunn, 1983; Plomin &
Daniels, 1987; Rowe & Plomin, 1981; Scarr
& Crajek, 1982), we found that a shared environment
was a major source of similarities
among siblings: silalings who lived apart
after their parents’ divorce were more different
than pairs who lived together. Siblings
who were living apart when we interviewed
them reported larger differences in household
organization, closeness to the nonresidential
parent, parent-child conflict, substance
use, and school effort than did those
living together. Likewise, parents of “split”
siblings reported larger differences in the
level of parental involvement with the two
siblings than other parents. More time in a
shared residence was related to smaller differences
in most of the family process and
psychosocial adjustment measures, although
not significantly so in the cases of feeling
caught between parents, school deviance,
grades, and “worst of three.”
Although sibling pairs who lived apart
were more different than pairs who lived
together, there were also significant differences
between siblings who shared a residence
arrangement. Paired comparisons of
sibling reports confirmed that siblings who
lived together differed in their perceptions
of their home and reported different adjustment.
Thus, we conclude that nonshared environments
within the same home do exist,
as has been claimed (Daniels et al., 1985;
Dunn, 1983; Dunn & Plomin, 1990; Plomin
& Daniels, 1987; Rowe & Plomin, 1981;
Scarr & Grajek, 1982), but that these environments
are not as different as environments
across households.
Not surprisingly, sibling correlations
for family processes were somewhat higher
than those for individual adjustment Daniels
et al. (1985) found that intraclass sibling
correlations of child reports of family processes
ranged from .18 to .29, while the correlations
of their reports of adjustment were
lower, ranging from .12 to .20. The relatively
Monahan et al. 165
high sibling correlations for parents’ reports
of parental involvement and child irritability
were consistent with Daniels et al.‘s finding
that parents tended to report more similar
sibling experiences than did the siblings
themselves.
In general, differences in perceptions of
tlte environment and psychosocial adjustment
were not related to sex composition of
sibling pairs nor to level of parent’s education,
confirming previous findings that demographic
factors explain extremely small
amounts of the variance in difference scores
(Daniels et al., 1985; Plomin & Foch, 1980;
Scarr & Crajek, 1982). Daniels et al.‘s (1985)
findings regarding the association between
differences in family processes and differences
in adjustment were also confirmed:
we found that pairs who reported more different
perceptions of family environments
also reported more different adjustment.
Differences in perceptions of family processes—
especially household organization
and parent-child confiict—were related to
differences in all of the adjustment measures
and were the strongest predictors of differences
in depression, school deviance,
antisocial behavior, grades, school effort,
and “worst of three.” Shared time was the
sti-ongest predictor of differences in substance
use.
Previous research has shown that household
organization, measured as a familylevel
variable, is associated with positive adjustment,
particularly in divorced families
(see Cuidibaldi et al., 1986; Hetherington,
Cox, & Cox, 1976, 1978). A structured home
seems to facilitate positive academic adjustment,
perhaps making it easier for a child to
concentrate on academic work by removing
the distractions of irregular schedules. Similarly,
established routines seem to foster
positive affective adjustment. Our results
indicate that household organization, as
reported by adolescents, is important: differences
in perceptions of household organization
are associated with differences in adjustment.
Why were differences in household organization
especially strong in predicting
differences in adjustment? We found it
somewhat puzzling that siblings differed as
much as they did in their reports of household
organization in the same home. Of the
family process measures, household organization
seemed to capture aspects of the
household that should be most consistent
across children. Our results indicate, however,
that perceptions of household organization
are, to a large extent, child-driven.
Perhaps reports of household organization
vary depending on a sibling’s awareness of
or involvement in routines. For example, a
child who is highly engaged in the home
and a child who is involved in a lot of activities
outside the home may have different
levels of awareness of any household routines
that do exist. Even if routines are objectively
the same for each sibling, adolescents
who have different expectations or
hopes for their home life may perceive a
given set of routines in different ways.
Household organization may be a proxy for
the extent to which the adolescent’s expectations
of the home are being met It would
not be surprising to find that siblings who
differ in their satisfaction with the household
also differ in their adjustment. Although
previous research has found that parent-
child relationships mediate adjustment
in both divorced and intact families (see
Astone & McLanahan, 1991; Crouter, Mac-
Dermid, McHale, & Perry-Jenkins, 1990;
Hess & Camara, 1979; Hetherington et al.,
1978), the results of the present study of
sibling differences indicate that adolescent
perceptions of the coherence of the general
home environment may be equally important.
Differences between siblings in parentchild
conflict were also associated with differences
in several measures of adjustment.
The relation between parent-child confiict
and all of the adjustment measures except
for depression and school deviance indicates
an association emiong externalizing problems.
Because all of the adjustment and
family process measures (except parental
involvement at T3) were reported in the T4
interview wave, we could not determine the
causal order of the relations between differences
in family processes and differences in
sibling adjustment. Thus, adolescents who
are involved in a great deal of overt confiict
with their parents may react by acting out
behaviorally in other contexts. Conversely,
adolescents engaged in deviant behavior
and who are performing poorly in school
may experience more conflict with their parents
over their behavior.
Based on theoretical considerations and
previous research, we suggested that both
within-household, nonshared environments
(e.g., differences in perceptions of family
processes) and same-family, betweenhousehold
environmental influences (e.g.,
split residence, shared time) may result in
166 Child Development
differences in adjustment Our results support
the importance of both in that split residence,
amount of shared time, and greater
differences in family processes were all
associated with greater differences in adjustment.
We found that siblings who spent more
time apart after divorce differed more in
their experiences of family processes and in
their reports of adjustment. Were these relations
an artifact of initial selection? Do siblings
who are initially most different spend
less time in the same household? We examined
the alternative hypothesis that differences
in adjustment or personality lead to
split residence. Our findings indicated that
early differences in child irritability were
not associated with the occurrence of split
residence at T4 or the amount of shared time
over the 4V2 years following parental separation.
Although initial level of father hostility
was associated with siblings spending more
time apart, father hostility did not explain
sibling differences in adjustment. In fact,
when the level of initial father hostility was
controlled, the effects of nonshared time
increased. We also found that background
factors and early child differences did not
predict differences in family processes. Although
our tests were limited, we did not
find much support for the claim that early
sibling differences lead to residence differences
or differences in experiences within
the same home.
Our information on the amount of residential
time siblings had spent together was
largely based on prior parental reports obtained
at several successive time points following
the parents’ separation. Therefore,
the relation between shared time and sibling
similarities cannot be attributed to samesource
bias. However, because the data
on family processes and adjustment were
largely gathered from a single source—adolescents—
at a single time period, the findings
on the relation between differences in
processes and differences in adjustment may
have a common response bias. Given this
situation, what information do we have concerning
the validity of the adolescentreported
measures? The little information
we do have indicates that the measures are
reasonably valid. In those cases v^^here we
have some earlier parental indicator of an
adolescent-reported construct, correlations
between T4 adolescent measures and earlier
parental reports of treatment and adolescent
adjustment were statistically significant and
in the direction expected. The residential
parent’s T3 report of parent-child closeness
correlated .32 with the adolescent’s report
of closeness at T4. Similarly, adolescent reports
of parental monitoring were correlated
with a T3 item asking parents about how difficult
it was to keep track of their child (r =
– .30) as well as with a composite of monitoring
items asked of the residential parent
at T3 (r = – .22). The residential parent’s
T3 report of the adolescent’s school progress
was correlated with the adolescent’s T4 reports
of grades (r = .44) and school effort (r
= .33). The fact that we also found relations
between differences in family processes and
differences in adjustment when process is
reported by parents (e.g., parental involvement)
and adjustment is reported by adolescents
gives us further confidence in our results.
Nonetheless, the relations reported
based on a single source are likely to be
somewhat inflated. Data gathered by multiple
or independent observers would help to
remedy this problem. Multiple observers
(e.g., both parents’ and children’s perspectives)
would increase confidence in the validity
of the measures, while independent
observers would provide objective information
about adolescent experiences, enabling
researchers to address the question of which
is more important in differentiating siblings
—objectively measured differences in the
environment, or differences as perceived by
the actors.
This research addressed the question of
whether differences in sibling and parent
reports of environmental factors predict differences
in sibling reports of adjustment.
We asked adolescents to report their experiences
of family processes and their perceptions
of their adjustment, and from those
reports we constructed scores to represent
the differences between siblings. Other approaches
to the study of sibling differences
are to be encouraged, but it should be recognized
that they may address slightly different
questions. For example, an adolescent
may be asked to directly compare his or her
experiences with those of a sibling (e.g.,
Daniels & Plomin, 1985). Siblings who report
that they are treated more differently by
their parents may also differ more in adjustment;
the relation that this methodology
would demonstrate, however, is that children’s
perceptions of differential parental
treatment are related to differences in adjustment—
not, as we found, that differences
between two children’s perceptions of a particular
environmental factor are related to
differences in adjustment.
In sum, while siblings differed from one
another in all family situations, it was not the
case that siblings in different homes were as
similar as siblings in the same home. The
finding that siblings who lived apart after divorce
were more different than siblings who
lived together, even though they came from
the same nuclear family, should encourage
researchers to reconsider the importance of
shared environment and to focus on the effects
of both shared and nonshared environments.
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