Young children's aggression and self-assertion during sibling conflict, sex differences and parents' reactions

Abstract

This study examined sex differences in children's aggression and self-assertion during sibling conflict, and whether parents responded differently to such behaviour in their daughters and their sons. Forty families were observed in their homes for a total of 18 hours at two different time periods. The interval between observation sessions was approximately two years. Sibling conflicts that arose naturally during these observations were the focus of the present study. At time 1, the children were approximately 2 1/2- and 4 1/2-years-old, and there was an equal number of all possible sister/brother combinations.

As expected, boys engaged in more physical aggression and property damage than girls. Surprisingly, boys and field became more similar over time in terms of how often they engaged in physical aggression and assertion, and this result was attributable to a greater decline in boys/ hostile physical behaviour. Girls and boys engaged in similar rates of verbal aggression, with the exception that boys insulted more often than their female counterparts. There were no sex differences in any of the verbal assertion categories. The sex of the interaction partner had a minimal impact on levels of children's aggression and assertion.

The physical aggression and physical assertion categories were combined to form a physical conflict variable. Parents prohibited boys' physical conflict more than girls' physical conflict, whereas they showed no response more often to girls' than to boys' physical conflict. By the second time period there was some evidence that parents were having success in this endeavour. Parents' more frequent prohibition of their older boy's physical conflict appeared to contribute to lower levels of this behaviour when the older boys were 6-years-old. Additionally, younger children's physical conflict at the second time period was related to parents' concurrent prohibitions of their older children's physical conflict as well as the level of physical conflict displayed by older children at the first time period. It appears that older siblings' behaviour and parents' treatment of older children are both important influences on how younger children behave.