2013/03/22 by Avidan Milevsky, Megan Heerwagen
Medicine · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Blame #Developmental psychology #Disengagement theory #Diversity (politics) #Family Dynamics and Relationships #Family Support in Illness #Gerontology #Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving #Interpretative phenomenological analysis #Intervention (counseling) #Medicine #Psychology #Qualitative research #Sibling #Sibling relationship #Social psychology #Sociology
paper · doi:10.1080/01494929.2012.762444
crossref issued 2013/03/22 · crossref published 2013/03/22 · crossref published-online 2013/03/22 · openalex publication_date 2013/03/22 · crossref created 2013/03/22 · crossref published-print 2013/04/01 · crossref deposited 2025/04/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref indexed 2026/08/02 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/02
A growing area of research has focused on the role played by siblings throughout the life span. However, limited work has been conducted on the sibling relationship dynamics of emerging adults specifically using qualitative methods. The current study is a phenomenological examination of the nature of sibling relationships in emerging adults using a sample of 52 students, 36 women and 16 men, between ages 18 and 23 years (M = 19.85, SD = 1.16) from a large northeastern U.S. state university. Participants were interviewed using semistructured questions about various aspects of family environment. Results were analyzed using the phenomenological method. Themes emanating from the interviews were as follows: (1) change in the relationship due to time and transitions, (2) variability due to family constellation, (3) difficulties due to divorce and blended families, (4) older sibling blame and responsibility, (5) parental punishment during sibling dispute and disengagement as the siblings aged, and (6) differences between parents in sibling dispute intervention. Findings highlight the diversity in experiences with siblings and the transitory nature of this relationship during the first year of college.