Sisters, Brothers, and Delinquency: Evaluating Social Influence during Early and Middle Adolescence

• Published in: Child development Vol. 72; no. 1; pp. 271 - 283
• Main Authors: Slomkowski, Cheryl, Rende, Richard, Conger, Katherine J., Simons, Ronald L., Conger, Rand D.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Boston, USA and Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishers Inc 01.01.2001; Blackwell Publishers; Blackwell
• Subjects: Adolescence; Adolescent; Adolescent Behavior; Adolescent Behavior - psychology; Adolescents; Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Age Factors; Antisocial behavior; Biological and medical sciences; Brothers; Child; Child Development; Coercive Behavior; Delinquency; Delinquent behavior; Family Influence; Family relations; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Hostility; Humans; Interpersonal Relations; Juvenile delinquency; Juvenile Delinquency - statistics & numerical data; Longitudinal Studies; Male; Medical sciences; Modeling; Predictor Variables; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Regression Analysis; Relationship Quality; Relationships and Interactions; Sibling Relations; Sibling Relationship; Sibling relationships; Siblings; Sisters; Social behavior disorders. Criminal behavior. Delinquency; Social Environment; Social influence; Social Influences; Surveys and Questionnaires; Human; Social influence; Social interaction; Juvenile delinquency; Adolescent; Sex; Sibling; Social behavior disorder; Preadolescent
• ISSN: 0009-3920; 1467-8624
• DOI: 10.1111/1467-8624.00278

Although a number of studies have shown that brothers are highly correlated for delinquent behavior, much less research has been conducted on sisters. We propose that sisters, like brothers, show notable similarity for delinquent behavior, and also promote each other's delinquency through direct interaction. We examined these issues in 164 brother and sister pairs studied over a 4-year period (from early to middle adolescence) in a study of intact families in the rural Midwest. Sibling similarity for self-reports of delinquent behavior were highly correlated for both brothers and sisters. Conditional effects of high levels of hostile-coercive sibling relationships and older sibling delinquency predicted younger sibling delinquency in both brother and sister pairs. For brothers, conditional effects were also detected for high levels of warmth-support, in contrast to sisters. The conditional effects of older sibling delinquency and relationship quality were shown to predict change in younger sibling delinquency through adolescence. The results add to a growing literature on sibling effects as well as theoretical models that emphasize the role of social interaction between siblings as a risk factor for the development of delinquent activity in adolescence.