Parental intervention style and adult sibling conflicts: The mediating role of involvement in sibling bullying

Abstract

Managing conflicts and aggressive behaviors between siblings is challenging for many parents, and parental responses to sibling conflict has been shown to influence the quality of children’s sibling interactions. Building on previous work on parental involvement in sibling conflict, the aim of this study was to investigate the mediating role of sibling bullying perpetration and victimization during childhood and adolescence in the relationship between parental intervention styles and conflicts in young adults’ sibling relationships. A sample of 302 individuals aged 17–33 years participated in the study. Results of structural equation modeling confirmed the proposed mediation model of young adults’ sibling conflicts. More precisely, parental control and parental noninvolvement were positively associated with experiences of sibling bullying perpetration and victimization, whereas parental coaching was associated with lower reports of sibling victimization. Involvement in sibling bullying during childhood and adolescence was, for its part, associated with sibling conflicts in young adulthood. Results of the current study confirmed that parenting intervention styles can influence children’s involvement in sibling bullying, which in turn, can predict conflicts in adult sibling relationships. In line with the family system theory, these results underline that parents can inadvertently play a role in the development of dysfunctional sibling relationships.

Keywords

Abuse/aggression bullying conflict resolution family psychology parenting styles sibling relations

Sibling bonds are generally the most enduring and long-lasting relationships in people’s lives (Milevsky, 2011; Portner & Riggs, 2016; Stocker, Lanthier, & Furman, 1997), but these relationships are not always positive and harmonious. Indeed, sibling violence is thought to be the most common form of family violence (e.g., Eriksen & Jensen, 2009). Parents often express deep concern about these aggressive behaviors and wonder how to intervene in order to foster more positive relationships between their children (Kramer & Baron, 1995; Pickering & Sanders, 2017). In this regard, Kramer and Baron (1995) specified that managing conflicts and aggressive behaviors between siblings has been reported to be one of the most challenging tasks of parenthood.

Recently, researchers in the field of family psychology have shown a growing interest in aggressive behaviors that have been labeled as sibling bullying given their seriousness (Skinner & Kowalski, 2013; Wolke, Tippett, & Dantchev, 2015). Involvement in sibling bullying encompasses both the perpetration of sibling bullying (i.e., acting aggressively toward a sibling) and sibling victimization (i.e., being mistreated by a sibling). It is of interest to consider both sibling bullying perpetration and victimization because of the positive association between these two variables, which indicates a reciprocal dimension to sibling bullying (Mathis & Mueller, 2015; Menesini, Camodeca, & Nocentini, 2010; Wolke et al., 2015). The relevance of studying these two types of involvement in sibling bullying also stems from the fact that both victims and perpetrators of sibling bullying are at greater risks of cognitive, psychological, and social problems (Kiselica & Morrill-Richards, 2007; Mathis & Mueller, 2015; Whipple & Finton, 1995).

Despite the high prevalence of involvement in sibling bullying (Skinner & Kowalski, 2013; Tucker, Finkelhor, Shattuck, & Turner, 2013) and the fact that parents are known to play a crucial role in the development of their children’s sibling relationships, as stated by Pickering and Sanders (2017) and the family system theory (Cox & Paley, 1997, 2003), the way parents deal with sibling conflict has received little attention in the literature (Finkelhor, Turner, & Ormrod, 2006). Similarly, the predictive power of involvement in sibling bullying during childhood and adolescence on sibling conflicts in subsequent stages of life remains to be investigated. Therefore, it appears particularly important to examine whether and how involvement in sibling bullying during childhood and adolescence plays a role in the relationships between parental intervention styles and conflicts in young adult sibling relationships. Relevant theoretical work (i.e., the family system theory) and empirical research on involvement in sibling bullying and on parental intervention styles, which contributed to the mediation model under study, are subsequently considered.

Sibling aggression can occur through acts of physical (e.g., hitting), verbal (e.g., teasing, name-calling), and social (e.g., exclusion) abuse as well as property damage (Tippett & Wolke, 2015). These aggressions between siblings are often repeated over time with the intention to cause harm and to dominate, and as such, are considered to be a form of bullying (Bowes, Wolke, Joinson, Lereya, & Lewis, 2014; Menesini et al., 2010; Skinner & Kowalski, 2013). For children, bullying occurs more frequently with siblings than with anyone else, including peers (Duncan, 1999; Hoetger, Hazen, & Brank, 2015; Skinner & Kowalski, 2013). In this regard, involvement in sibling bullying is among the most common forms of aggression in society, with a prevalence ranging from 15% to 78% for sibling victimization, and from 10% to 85% for perpetration of sibling bullying (see Wolke et al., 2015, for a summary of previous work).

Although involvement in sibling bullying generally tends to decrease with age, for many individuals, the problem persists over a long period of time (Skinner & Kowalski, 2013; Tippett & Wolke, 2015). These data suggest that involvement in sibling bullying during childhood and adolescence could be associated with lasting sibling conflicts. In fact, Stocker, Lanthier, and Furman (1997) documented that a subgroup of siblings have periodic conflicts during adulthood and that these conflicts are not without consequence. More precisely, their results showed that conflictual adult sibling relationships are associated with lower psychological functioning and lower self-worth.

Many factors, such as gender, age difference, or number of siblings (Buist & Vermande, 2014; Finzi-Dottan & Cohen, 2011; Stocker et al., 1997), are associated with the development of sibling relationships. Findings suggest that sibling bullying during childhood is more common among closely aged siblings (Tucker et al., 2013). In addition, during middle-childhood, sibling pairs with an older brother were overrepresented in a sibling relationship cluster characterized by low warmth and high conflict (Buist & Vermande, 2014). In early adulthood, siblings who were further apart in age and who were of different genders perceived less conflict in their relationships than siblings who were close in age or who were of the same gender (Finzi-Dottan & Cohen, 2011; Stocker et al., 1997). The number of siblings was also positively associated with rivalry (Stocker et al., 1997) and sibling bullying (Bowes et al., 2014). Although significant, these family structure variables may, however, be less central in predicting sibling relationships than the role of parents (Dunn, 1983). Researchers have documented that the way parents react to their children’s disputes, fights, and arguments can influence the quality of their sibling interactions (see, e.g., McHale, Updegraff, Tucker, & Crouter, 2000; Ross & Lazinski, 2014; Tucker & Kazura, 2013). As sibling negative interactions are one of the first contexts in which children are exposed to conflict management (Dunn & Munn, 1985), parents can provide a foundation for learning family rules and developing effective conflict resolution strategies (Kramer, Perozynski, & Chung, 1999; McHale et al., 2000; Milevsky, Schlechter, & Machlev, 2011).

Researchers who studied parents’ sibling conflict intervention styles mostly organized the strategies they employed in three categories: (1) noninvolvement strategies, (2) coaching or child-centered strategies, and (3) control or intervention strategies (Kramer et al., 1999; McHale et al., 2000; Milevsky et al., 2011). Noninvolvement strategies refer to methods in which parents ignore the problem or let their children find a solution on their own. Coaching strategies are, for their part, interventions centered on children’s social and emotional development. When using these strategies, parents help their children to communicate and understand each other’s perspective and feelings and guide them toward a solution. Finally, control strategies are defined as methods in which parents intervene directly to eliminate the problem (e.g., punishment), without including their children in the conflict management process.

Early researchers had argued that parents should not be involved in their children’s conflicts, in order to give them the opportunity to learn the necessary conflict resolution skills on their own (Driekurs, 1964; Felson & Russo, 1988). More recently, researchers rather argued that by staying out of their children’s conflicts, parents are missing an opportunity to provide structure and guidance for their social relationship development (Ross & Lazinski, 2014; Smith & Ross, 2007). In line with the latter perspective, Kramer, Perozynski, and Chung (1999) found that parental noninvolvement in children’s sibling conflicts was highly associated with the occurrence of subsequent conflict.

Furthermore, Ross and Lazinski (2014) and Smith and Ross (2007) argued that, to teach children constructive resolution strategies, parental interventions must be focused on problem-solving and communication (i.e., coaching strategies), rather than dictation and punishment (i.e., control strategies). Consistent with this idea, Tucker and Kazura (2013) found that child-centered strategies were linked to positive sibling relationships, whereas sanction of aggression was linked to greater conflicts in child sibling relationships. Along the same line, McHale, Updegraff, Tucker, and Crouter’ (2000) results indicated that the use of parental control strategies (e.g., stepping in to solve the problem) was linked to higher levels of negativity in adolescent sibling relationships, while this was not the case for coaching and noninvolvement strategies. Coaching strategies are frequently used by parents in response to adolescent sibling conflicts (McHale et al., 2000) and they were linked to positive characteristics in sibling relationships, such as sibling warmth (Milevsky et al., 2011).

Although parental sibling conflict intervention styles have been addressed by many researchers, no previous studies have tested the relationships between this variable and both sibling bullying perpetration and victimization. Furthermore, the links between parental sibling conflict intervention styles and adult sibling relationships are yet to be examined. Consequently, the objective of the current study was to test whether sibling bullying perpetration and victimization during childhood and adolescence mediate the associations between parental intervention styles (i.e., parental noninvolvement, coaching, and control) and conflicts in young adult sibling relationships. We chose to focus on young adult’s recalled experiences of parental intervention styles and sibling bullying during childhood and adolescence, as children and adolescents are similarly affected by many forms of sibling aggression (Tucker, Finkelhor, Turner, & Shattuck, 2013).

We were interested in predicting conflicts in young adult sibling relationships since many researchers noted that the greatest gap in knowledge concerning the developmental course of sibling relationships relates to the period of young adulthood (Arnett, 2004; Cicirelli, 1995; Finzi-Dottan & Cohen, 2011). In this study, sibling conflicts in young adulthood were operationalized as patterns of dominance in the relationship. Sibling dominance is defined as the degree of control a person has over outcomes or goals during interactions with a sibling (Faith, Elledge, Newgent, & Cavell, 2015). We examined whether perpetrating sibling bullying or being a victim of sibling bullying during childhood and adolescence was linked to being dominant or being dominated by a sibling later in life. This indicator of sibling conflict was selected to further explore the patterns of dominance that characterize involvement in sibling bullying (i.e., a form of aggression between siblings that is repeated over time to dominate).

The family system theory provides useful lens for exploring the dynamics within sibling relationships. This theory views family members as continuously interdependent and posits that family dynamics (i.e., triadic interactions with parents) could have a robust effect on offspring development (Cox & Paley, 1997, 2003). According to this theory, any individual family member is embedded in the larger family system and can never be fully understood independent of the context of that system. On the basis of previous work and the family system theory, we expected that parental noninvolvement and parental control in conflicts between siblings would be associated with more reports of sibling bullying perpetration and victimization, whereas parental coaching would be associated with less experiences of sibling bullying perpetration and victimization (Hypothesis 1). In addition, we postulated that sibling bullying perpetration and victimization during childhood and adolescence would be positively associated with reports of being dominant and being dominated, respectively, in the current sibling relationship (Hypothesis 2).

Method

Participants

Participants were 302 (56 males and 246 females) French–Canadian undergraduate university students (M = 1.80 completed university years, SD = 1.14). The vast majority of participants were Caucasian. Their mean age was 19.38 years (min = 17, max = 33, SD = 2.13). On average, they had 1.72 siblings (SD = 1.13) and were mostly the first-born (41% of the sample) or second-born (42% of the sample) child (M = 1.88th rank in the family, SD = 1.05). The majority of participants (67% of the sample) lived in a family of origin with two parents in a first marriage. The highest level of education completed by mothers and fathers was mostly associate’s (37% for both mothers and fathers) and bachelor’s degrees (30 and 21%, respectively). Fifty-one percent of the participants were living in the parental home. Respondents who lived independently (49% of the sample) left home on average at 18.11 years (SD = 1.84). A multivariate analysis of variance comparing respondents living in the parental home with those living independently showed no significant differences between the two groups on parental intervention styles, involvement in sibling bullying, and conflicts in adult sibling relationships, F (7, 293) = .96, p = .46.

Procedure

Prior to conducting the research, a certification of compliance with ethical principles was obtained from the institutional research ethics board of the university at which the research was done. The research was conducted in accordance with the approved protocol. The following criteria were used to select participants for the current study to form a convenience sample: having at least one sibling and being a young adult (i.e., aged between 17 years and 35 years). Participants were recruited via advertisements and announcements in lectures in many departments of a Canadian university. No compensation was offered to participants. Participants were informed that they would be participating in a study on family interactions and psychosocial development and well-being. Participants first consented and then completed the questionnaires measuring demographic variables, parental sibling conflict intervention styles, involvement in sibling bullying, and conflicts in adult sibling relationships.

Measures

Demographic variables and characteristics of the family of origin

Respondents provided relevant background data on, for instance, their gender, age, education level, and number of siblings. This questionnaire also asked respondents to indicate their parents’ current marital status and educational levels.

Parental sibling conflict intervention style

The measure of parental intervention style was developed by Milevsky, Schlechter, and Machlev (2011) based on the three categories employed by McHale et al. (2000). Respondents were asked to indicate how their mother and father responded when they fought with their siblings during their childhood and adolescence. Seven items, each accompanied by five-interval scales (1 = almost never, 2 = once in a while, 3 = quite often, 4 = often, and 5 = almost always), tapped three intervention styles: noninvolvement, coaching, and control. Responses to “they ignored the problem,” “they told you to work out the problem yourselves,” and “they told you to ask your other parent to handle the problem” were averaged to form the noninvolvement score. Responses to “they gave you advice” and “they explained your siblings’ feelings to you” were averaged to derive the Coaching score. Finally, responses to “they stepped in and solved the problem” and “they punished you for fighting” were averaged to obtain the Control score. Higher scores for each subscale indicate higher use of each intervention style by parents.

The existence of a meaningful typology of parental involvement in sibling conflict was confirmed by Milevsky et al. (2011). Together, these three factors accounted for 73% of the variance in parents’ involvement in sibling conflict (McHale et al., 2000). Concerning the reliability of the measure in our sample, the mean inter-item correlations for the noninvolvement subscale were .25, p < .01. Given that this index should vary between .1 and .5, with optimal values between .2 and .4 (Briggs & Cheek, 1986; Clark & Watson, 1995), we concluded that the reliability of the noninvolvement subscale was optimal. The correlation between the two items measuring Coaching was of .60, p < .001, whereas the correlation between the two items measuring Control was of .21, p < .01.

Involvement in sibling bullying

This concept was measured by the Sibling Relations Questionnaire developed by Duncan (1999). This 10-item questionnaire is an adaptation for siblings of the Peer Relations Questionnaire (Rigby & Slee, 1993). Respondents were asked to report how often different types of aggressive behaviors had occurred with their siblings during their childhood and adolescence. Each participant received scores on two scales assessing sibling victimization and sibling bullying perpetration. Sibling victimization was assessed by five items: “My sister or brother called me names,” “My sister or brother picked on me,” “My sister or brother hit me and pushed me around,” “My sister or brother beat me up,” and “I was scared that my sister or brother would hurt me badly.” Sibling bullying perpetration was measured using five items: “I called my sister or brother names,” “I picked on my sister or brother,” “I hit and pushed around my sister or brother,” “I beat my sister or brother,” and “I was scared that I would hurt my sister or my brother badly.” Responses were 1 = never, 2 = once in a while, 3 = often, and 4 = very often. Overall scores for each subscale were calculated by taking the average of items, with higher scores indicating a higher frequency of sibling victimization or sibling bullying. Alpha coefficients for the current study were .77 for sibling victimization and for sibling bullying perpetration.

Conflict in adult sibling relationships

The dominance scale of the Adult Sibling Relationship Questionnaire (Stocker et al., 1997) was used to measure two problematic aspects in adult sibling relationships: being dominated and being dominant. The whole questionnaire is designed to evaluate sibling relationships in early adulthood. The dominance scale characterizes the conflict dimension and includes six items. These items assessed respondents’ perception of their own behavior and feelings toward their brother or sister as well as their perceptions of this sibling’s behavior and feelings toward them. Respondents with multiple siblings were instructed to choose the sibling with whom they had the greatest conflicts in the past to answer the questionnaire. Of the total sample, 49% answered the questionnaire by considering their brother (or one of their brothers), while 51% answered the questionnaire by considering their sister (or one of their sisters). Forty-six percent of respondents revealed that they were older than their (chosen) sibling, 53% revealed that they were younger, while 1% revealed that the (chosen) sibling was their twin. Respondents rate how characteristic each item is of themselves and of their (chosen) sibling using Likert-type scales ranging from 1 = hardly at all to 5 = extremely much. Responses to “How much does this sibling dominate you?,” “How much is this sibling bossy with you?,” and “How much does this sibling act in superior ways to you?” were averaged to form the subscale being dominated. By comparison, responses to “How much do you dominate this sibling?,” “How much are you bossy with this sibling?,” and “How much do you act in superior ways to this sibling?” were averaged to derive the being dominant subscale. The higher the score, the more respondents had feelings of being dominated by or of dominating the (chosen) sibling. The scale’s internal reliability for the current sample was very good (α = .78 for being dominated and α = .81 for being dominant).

Results

Missing values were replaced with the participant’s mean score when 80% of the items on the scale in question were answered (n = 2). Respondents who did not complete all questionnaires, who failed to answer more than 80% of the items in a questionnaire, or who did not report their gender, their age, or the required demographic information about the sibling with whom they had the greatest conflicts in the past were not included in the sample (n = 38; initial sample: n = 340; final sample: n = 302). The correlation matrix was prepared through the listwise deletion option for all analyses.

Means, standard deviation, Pearson bivariate correlations (for pairs of continuous and ordinal variables), and point-biserial correlations (for pairs of correlations implying gender and chosen sibling’s gender) are reported in Table 1. As shown in this table, parental coaching was negatively related to sibling victimization, whereas parental control and parental noninvolvement were positively related to the same variable. Higher levels of parental control and parental noninvolvement were also significantly associated with higher sibling bullying perpetration. Sibling victimization was, for its part, positively related to being dominated by the (chosen) sibling, while sibling bullying perpetration was positively associated with dominance toward this sibling. Respondents’ gender was significantly correlated to sibling bullying perpetration revealing that men reported higher levels of sibling bullying perpetration than their female counterparts. Moreover, results of Table 1 indicated that being dominated in young adulthood was associated with the gender of the (chosen) sibling: respondents reported being more dominated when the (chosen) sibling was a sister. The (chosen) sibling’s rank, for its part, was associated with sibling dominance, indicating that respondents reported higher levels of dominance toward their sibling if they were older than the (chosen) sibling. Results of Table 1 indicated that the more parents used parental coaching, as reported by their children, the less they used noninvolvement strategies and the more they used control strategies. Sibling bullying perpetration and victimization were also positively correlated. Finally, as displayed in Table 1, respondents disclosing high levels of dominance toward their (chosen) sibling revealed that this sibling also dominated them.

Table 1.

Correlations and descriptive statistics of variables of interest (n = 302).

Measure	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
1. Respondent’s gender	—	−.08	.13**	.02	−.03	.04	.03	.15*	−.06	.13*
2. Sibling’s gender		—	.04	.02	−.09	−.01	−.02	−.02	.16**	.05
3. Sibling’s rank			—	.11*	−.06	.01	−.03	.07	−.07	.33***
4. Parental noninvolvement				—	−.20***	−.07	.18**	.14*	.12*	.10
5. Parental coaching					—	.35***	−.12*	−.06	−.16**	−.08
6. Parental control						—	.13*	.12*	−.04	.05
7. Sibling victimization							—	.72***	.18**	.02
8. Sibling bullying perpetration								—	.06	.23***
9. Being dominated									—	.36***
10. Being dominant										—
M	—	—	1.94	1.79	2.93	3.02	1.55	1.54	1.72	1.77
SD	—	—	.99	.63	1.10	.89	.49	.48	.87	.90
Range			[1, 3]	[1, 5]	[1, 5]	[1, 5]	[1, 3.6]	[1, 3.6]	[1, 5]	[1, 5]

Note. For gender, 0 = female and 1 = male. For sibling’s gender, 0 = brother and 1 = sister. For sibling’s rank, 1 = older than the respondent, 2 = same age, and 3 = younger than the respondent.

*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

Results of a repeated-measures analysis of variance showed that the frequency of use of the three parental intervention styles differed between strategies, F (2, 300) = 186.64, p < .001, $η_{p}^{2} = .55$ . Post hoc comparisons (Tukey’s Honest Significant Difference test) revealed that parental noninvolvement was used less often than parental coaching and control, but that these last two did not differ from each other. Results of paired t tests confirmed that respondents reported that they had been bullied by their siblings as often as they had bullied their siblings during their childhood and adolescent years, t (301) = .28, p = .77. Similarly, they revealed that they currently dominate their (chosen) sibling as much as this person dominates them, t (301) = −1.02, p = .31.

Path analysis models were tested with the EQS 6.3 program using the maximum-likelihood method. The overall model fit was assessed using several goodness-of-fit indices (GFIs). Acceptable fit is indicated by a relative χ² value (χ²/df) inferior or equal to 2.0 and a nonsignificant χ² value; a GFI and a comparative fit index of .95 or higher; a standardized root mean square residual smaller than .08; and a root mean square error of approximation smaller than .07 (Hooper, Coughlan, & Mullen, 2008).

The proposed mediational model linking parental sibling conflict intervention styles during respondents’ childhood and adolescence to conflicts in adult sibling relationships through involvement in sibling bullying was tested. In these path analyses, independent variables (i.e., the three parental sibling conflict intervention styles) were allowed to correlate with one another. Similarly, error terms of the mediators (i.e., sibling victimization and sibling bullying perpetration) were permitted to covary one with the other. The same thing was true for error terms of the outcome variables (i.e., being dominated and being dominant). Given that previous work found evidence that patterns of dominance are influenced by structural variables (Roth, Harkins, & Eng, 2014; Tucker & Updegraff, 2010), we used them as covariates. More precisely, based on the correlations shown in Table 1 between structural variables (including the respondent’s gender, chosen sibling’s gender, and chosen sibling’s rank) and predicted variables (including sibling victimization, sibling bullying perpetration, being dominated, and being dominant), we entered the (chosen) sibling’s rank as a covariate for being dominant and the (chosen) sibling’s gender as a covariate for being dominated. The respondent’s gender was also entered as a covariate for sibling bullying perpetration. Living in the parental home was also considered as a potential confounding variable. Yet, this variable was not included in the model as no relationship was found between, on the one hand, housing arrangement, and on the other hand, mediators and outcome variables (correlations varying from .02 to .07, p > .05).

As illustrated in Figure 1, 10 of the 11 paths of the model were significant. The path between parental coaching and sibling bullying perpetration was the only nonsignificant path. As revealed in Table 2, the model provided an acceptable fit to the data for all indices, with the exception of the χ² test. The χ² statistic was significant, but given that it nearly always rejects the model when large samples are used (Hooper et al., 2008) and that the relative χ² value, which adjusts for sample size, was acceptable, we concluded that the overall fit was still adequate. The model accounted for 7% of variance in sibling victimization, 6% of variance in sibling bullying, 8% of variance in feelings of being dominated in the current relationship, and 18% of variance in feelings of being dominant in the current relationship.

Figure 1.

Illustration of the mediational path model (n = 302). All values represent standardized parameter estimates. A solid line indicates a significant effect (p < .05) and a dashed line indicates a nonsignificant effect.

Table 2.

Fit indices for the path models (n = 302).

Model	Relative χ² (χ²/df)	GFI	CFI	SRMR	RMSEA [90% CI]	AIC	CAIC
Original path model	1.82 (52.89/29)**	.97	.95	.06	.05 [.03, .07]	−5.12	−141.72
More saturated model	1.99 (45.72/23)**	.97	.95	.05	.06 [.03, .08]	−.28	−108.62
Competing inversed model	3.09 (77.37/25)***	.95	.88	.06	.08 [.06, .10]	27.37	−90.39

Note. GFI = goodness-of-fit index, CFI = comparative fit index, SRMR = standardized root mean square residual, RMSEA = root mean square error of approximation, AIC = Akaike’s information criterion, CAIC = consistent Akaike’s information criterion.

**p < .01; ***p < .001.

As suggested by MacKinnon (2008), we also tested a more saturated model, which simultaneously included all paths of the hypothesized model in addition to direct paths between independent variables and the two outcome variables. Results for this model showed no significant direct effects between the three independent variables and the two outcomes (see Table 2 for its fit indices). We then assessed whether complete mediation occurred by comparing the χ² from the original model (which included only the indirect paths from the independent variables to the outcomes through the mediators) with the χ² from the model including direct effects (MacKinnon, 2008). Complete mediation means that indirect effects are nonzero, whereas direct effects are zero (Ledermann, Macho, & Kenny, 2011). The hypothesis of complete mediation cannot be rejected if the difference between the χ² values is nonsignificant (MacKinnon, 2008). Results of this test showed no significant difference between the two models, Δχ² (6, N = 302) = 7.15, p = .31, suggesting that complete mediation was probable. It appears that sibling bullying perpetration and victimization during childhood and adolescence could fully mediate the relationships between parental intervention strategies and conflicts in adult sibling relationships.

We also investigated and contrasted a competing inversed model using the two forms of involvement in sibling bullying as independent variables and parental sibling conflict intervention styles as mediators. The two measures of conflict in adult sibling relationships (i.e., being dominated and being dominant) remained the outcome variables and were predicted by parental intervention styles. Apart from these changes, the model was similar to the path model presented in Figure 1. Results showed that the original model provided a better fit to the data than the competing inversed model (see Table 2). A χ² difference test showed that the original model was significantly superior to the competing inversed model, Δχ² (4, N = 302) = 24.50, p < .001. As revealed in Table 2, the superiority of the original model was also evidenced by its lower Akaike’s information criterion and consistent Akaike’s information criterion, compared with those of the competing inversed model (Byrne, 2006).

Discussion

The current retrospective study contributes to an unexplored area of research by examining the roles of parental sibling conflict intervention styles and involvement in sibling bullying in the prediction of conflicts in young adult sibling relationships. The hypothesized mediation model of young adult sibling conflicts provided an acceptable fit for the data. More precisely, results of the current study confirmed the mediating role of sibling bullying perpetration and victimization in the relationship between parenting intervention styles, especially parental noninvolvement and control, and sibling conflicts in young adulthood. Hypothesis 1 on the relationship between parental sibling conflict intervention styles and involvement in sibling bullying was partially confirmed, whereas Hypothesis 2 on the link between involvement in sibling bullying and conflicts in adult sibling relationships was fully confirmed by our results.

As hypothesized, our analyses showed that parental noninvolvement and parental control in sibling conflicts were associated with higher reports of sibling bullying perpetration and victimization. These results are in line with those of previous studies indicating that siblings do not benefit from parents’ decision to ignore the problems or to allow their children to work out conflicts on their own (Kramer et al., 1999; McHale et al., 2000; Tucker & Kazura, 2013). Similarly, parents’ efforts to resolve conflicts by stepping in to solve their problems or by punishing them for fighting do not seem to be effective (McHale et al., 2000; Siddiqui & Ross, 1999; Tucker & Kazura, 2013). Rather than helping children to get along, the use of these intervention strategies seems to be associated with more negativity, frustration, and aggression in the sibling relationship.

For its part, parental coaching was, as expected, negatively associated with experiences of sibling victimization. However, the negative association between parental coaching and sibling bullying perpetration did not reach statistical significance, which is why we concluded that Hypothesis 1 was only partially confirmed. Our results suggest that parental coaching could be particularly beneficial for victims of sibling bullying. Coaching interventions might protect children and adolescents against sibling victimization, as parents often intervene by supporting the victim and by helping him/her verbalize his/her own point of view (Recchia, Wainryb, & Howe, 2013). Parental coaching could therefore help children acquire adaptive coping strategies and develop important qualities, such as self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-assertion. These results parallel those of the peer bullying literature, which showed that positive parenting decreases the risk of being a victim of peer bullying (Lereya, Samara, & Wolke, 2013). Although in light of the existing literature we had predicted a significant link between parental coaching and sibling bullying perpetration, it is important to mention that a number of authors also obtained nonsignificant results with regard to this parental sibling conflict intervention style. Specifically, McHale et al. (2000) and Tucker and Kazura (2013) reported nonsignificant relationships between parental coaching and levels of negativity and conflicts in sibling relationships.

Our findings underline the key function of parental intervention styles in involvement in sibling bullying. Responses to sibling conflicts need to be judiciously selected by parents as they can promote both sibling bullying involvement, as well as more positive sibling relationships (Kramer et al., 1999; McHale et al., 2000; Tucker & Kazura, 2013). In this regard, our results add support to the few studies that have shown that children’s involvement in the conflict resolution process is a beneficial tool for parents when managing conflicts between siblings (Siddiqui & Ross, 1999; Smith & Ross, 2007; Tucker & Kazura, 2013).

As assumed in Hypothesis 2, results revealed that sibling bullying perpetration during childhood and adolescence was associated with young adults’ higher reports of being dominant in the current sibling relationship, whereas sibling victimization was related to higher reports of being dominated. Patterns of dominance have been studied less frequently than other aspects of the sibling relationship (e.g., warmth or support), and our findings significantly add to the existing literature by bringing to light the developmental patterns of the sibling power dynamic, as entailed by sibling bullying involvement. More precisely, our results suggest that patterns of dominance underlying involvement in sibling bullying during childhood and adolescence may be carried over into young adult sibling relationships. Our results converge with those of Stocker et al. (1997), indicating that some siblings have periodic conflicts into adulthood.

It should be noted that all covariates contributed to the model. Men reported higher levels of sibling bullying perpetration than their female counterparts during their childhood and adolescence. These results are in line with data showing that boys tend to be more aggressive with their siblings than girls during childhood (Milevsky, 2011) and that the presence of a brother, especially an older brother, seems to be a risk factor for the emergence of sibling victimization at home (Menesini et al., 2010). In addition, respondents reported higher levels of dominance toward their sibling in young adulthood if they were older than their sibling. Although few studies have examined the patterns of dominance between siblings during adulthood, our results provide evidence that the power imbalance favoring older siblings during childhood and adolescence (Tucker & Updegraff, 2010) may be retained in young adulthood. In accordance with data showing high levels of conflict between sisters in young adult sibling relationships (Finzi-Dottan & Cohen, 2011), respondents reported being more dominated by their (chosen) sibling when this sibling was a sister. In sum, our results confirm the role of family structure variables in sibling relationships.

Taken together, our findings support the mediating role of sibling bullying perpetration and victimization in the relationship between parental sibling conflict intervention styles and sibling conflicts in young adulthood. More precisely, we found that parental intervention styles are linked to experiences of sibling bullying perpetration and victimization, which in turn, are associated with patterns of dominance in the current sibling relationship. These results are in accordance with the family system theory (Cox & Paley, 1997, 2003), which postulates that “sibling relationships do not function in isolation from other family relationships” (Buist & Vermande, 2014, p. 535). Supporting the assertion that family members continuously exert a mutual influence on one another, our findings suggest that parents’ sibling conflict interventions can have concurrent and potentially lasting effects on sibling relationships.

Such knowledge about the relationships between parental sibling conflict intervention styles, involvement in sibling bullying, and sibling conflicts in young adulthood is critical for promoting lasting positive sibling relationships. Parenting skills programs, offered in schools, family support centers, or community centers, should include educational sessions about the consequences of sibling bullying and conflict intervention strategies, as most parents do not see themselves as directly linked to their children’s sibling conflictual and aggressive behaviors (Pickering & Sanders, 2017). More precisely, psychoeducation on the adverse consequences of sibling bullying involvement on sibling relationship quality and personal well-being (Bowes et al., 2014; Buist & Vermande, 2014; Tucker et al., 2013) could help reduce the frequency with which parents ignore or minimize conflictual behaviors in the home. In addition, parents should be informed of the potential links between parental sibling conflict intervention styles and both concurrent and future sibling interactions.

It is also important to teach parents conflict resolution strategies as part of parental coaching (e.g., facilitate constructive communication between siblings and encourage children to brainstorm resolutions to their conflicts) considering the beneficial effects of this intervention style on sibling victimization. The need for such educational programs is even more apparent in light of respondents’ reports about their parents’ intervention strategies. Specifically, participants in the current study reported that their parents employed control strategies as often as coaching strategies. Yet, our results showed that parental control (i.e., when parents intervene directly to eliminate the problem, without including their children in the process) was positively associated with both sibling bullying perpetration and victimization. Moreover, parent’s initial use of control methods to handle children’s conflict predictably led to additional control methods, which is a matter of concern (Kramer et al., 1999).

Finally, we also investigated a theoretically plausible competing model, in which the relationship between involvement in sibling bullying and parental sibling conflict intervention styles was inversed. Although previous studies have mainly examined the influence of parenting on sibling relationship qualities (see, e.g., McHale et al., 2000; Milevsky et al., 2011; Perlman & Ross, 1997), Yu and Gamble (2008) argued that parents’ attitudes and intervention styles may be influenced by behaviors among siblings. However, our results showed that the original model (i.e., parenting styles → involvement in sibling bullying → sibling conflict in adulthood) provided a better fit to the data than the inversed competing model (i.e., involvement in sibling bullying → parenting styles → sibling conflict in adulthood). Our results do not, however, eliminate the possibility that parenting styles and sibling bullying involvement may have a mutual influence on one another. Future research should further explore these paths of influence to gain a fuller understanding of the reciprocal effects between involvement in sibling bullying and parental sibling conflict intervention styles.

Before concluding, some limitations of the current study should be pointed out. First, data analyzed in this study were all collected during adulthood, which may have introduced recall bias of former experiences given the amount of time passed since childhood. This also limited our ability to detect causal relationships. Future research should collect longitudinal data to investigate these relationships more carefully and to allow clearer conclusions about causality. Furthermore, longitudinal studies will also be valuable for enhancing our understanding of changes in sibling relationships quality across development (Kramer & Baron, 1995). Second, our data were gathered using young adults’ self-report questionnaires, which may have inflated the covariations among our variables of interest. However, studies with direct behavioral measures of interpersonal relationships are often limited to smaller sample size (Gardner, 2000), which inhibits the use of more statistically powerful analyses (i.e., structural equation modeling). Another limitation relates to the fact that we used data from young adults, mostly women, registered at a Canadian university, and the findings may not be generalizable to those from other contexts. The fact that respondents were mostly emerging adults and that half of them (51%) were still living in the parental home also created limitations to the current study’s findings. Although no differences were found on key variables between respondents living in the parental home and those living independently, our results do not eliminate the possibility that, for a number of respondents, the nature of sibling conflicts may be more trivial (with minor disagreements from regular exchanges and frequent contacts) and may not reflect deeper or more complex problems that can exist between two independent adults with less frequent contact. Finally, a large proportion of the variance of involvement in sibling bullying and sibling conflicts in young adulthood was left unexplained by variables that came earlier in our model. Future research attempting to predict the level of conflict in adult sibling relationships might benefit from a framework that considers additional factors, such as parental warmth and other sibling relationship characteristics (e.g., warmth, support, attachment, number of siblings, or age difference between siblings). Future studies should also collect data from more than one sibling.

Despite these limitations, the current study contributes to a growing body of literature assessing the role of parents in the development of dysfunctional sibling relationships among their offspring. Data reported in this study indicate that parenting intervention styles can influence children’s involvement in sibling bullying, which in turn, can influence conflict in adult sibling relationships. These findings have implications for the prevention of sibling bullying involvement during childhood and adolescence and sibling conflicts in young adulthood. More precisely, parents should be encouraged to recognize the presence of bullying behaviors between their children and to include them in the conflict management process, rather than stepping in to solve the problem themselves or punishing them for fighting. Given that managing conflicts between siblings is one of the most challenging tasks of parenthood, the current results might be helpful for designing programs aimed at reducing sibling bullying involvement and promoting more positive sibling relationships.

Footnotes

Authors’ note

Part of this research was presented at the 29th International Congress of Applied Psychology, Montréal, on June 2018.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Jolène Doucet, Karine Perron, Karine Roy, and Jannie Thibodeau for their assistance with data collection and data entry.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported in part by a grant from the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research from our institution.

Open research statement

This research was not pre-registered. The data and materials used in the research are available upon request by emailing genevieve.bouchard@umoncton.ca.

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