While scientific research on sibling relations is not very popular, it is of great importance, brothers have a great role in our lives and also in our development, throughout history they have been present in many legends, stories and stories. they are even the love story between brothers Isis and Osiris or the relationship the brothers have in Mozart’s The Magic Flute.
We all know from our own experience or from what we have seen in other families that the relationship between siblings is not only important because of its impact on the social sphere, but also in terms of cognitive development, parents return most of their efforts to education. and educate their children, but siblings will also influence their education, both positively and negatively.
- Today.
- Psychologists and clinicians of education are aware of the influence of the nature of the fraternal relationship.
- So we can find many studies and research in this field of study.
- In this article we will talk more specifically about two hypotheses: the Hypothesis of compensation between brothers and hypothesis of hostility towards patronage Both hypotheses are related to the treatment of parents towards their children.
- Which can occur differently in many cases.
First, it is important to say that fraternal relationships cannot be studied or sought in isolation, i. e. it is important to take into account other variables, such as the differential treatment of parents in front of siblings. Here comes the first question. : What if parents mistreat one of the children?
The assumption of compensation for siblings argues that they can develop a closer and more welcoming relationship and help each other in situations where there is a relative lack of maternal or parental care, i. e. siblings would act to compensate or replace parents in order to achieve normal development despite a shortfall in parental education.
Studies on this hypothesis yield results in your favor. There seems to be an inverse correlation between the quality of the parent-child interaction and the quality of the fraternal relationship. In a lab study conducted by Bryant and Crockenber, the results showed that indifference to their children correlates with a greater number of prosocial behaviors of the older brother towards the younger brother.
These studies make us think that school-age siblings support each other and teach each other in the absence of family support. But we must be careful when interpreting this data, as studies often show conflicting results. This is because there are many other factors besides maternal or paternal treatment that regulate relationships between humans.
Previously, we talked about how sibling relationships can become welcoming and close to the treatment of parents, but family behavior can also end up generating hostility among siblings, this is where the hypothesis of hostility arises through the favoritism of parents. This hypothesis will speak to children’s perceptions of how parents treat different siblings.
The assumption of hostility for favoritism of the parents says that the brothers can develop hostile relationships if one of them perceives that he is being treated worse than the other, that is, if a child observes that his parents are showing favoritism towards his brother, a response will appear, which will trigger hostile behavior towards his brother.
In one investigation, Hetherington found that when one of the brothers is treated with less welcome and affection, the likelihood of aggressive sibling interaction increases and rivalry behaviors also prevail; However, as in the previous hypothesis, it should be noted that there are many other factors that can modulate sibling treatment.
In any case, the different studies on the relations between brothers show us the importance they have in our lives and in our development, in the end, a brother, in many cases, is the reference of knowledge and trust that will accompany us for most of our lives. Lives.