Children's Accounts of Sibling Jealousy and Their Implicit Theories about Relationships

Abstract

AbstractIn two studies, fifth‐ and sixth‐grade children's descriptive accounts of sibling jealousy were related to their implicit theories about relationships. Children's jealousy accounts were collected via structured interviews; their implicit theories were assessed by questionnaire. In both studies, children reported experiencing mild to moderate jealousy with diverted attention and favoritism as primary causes. In Study 1 (N = 63; M age = 11 years, 9 months), children who endorsed malleable (incremental) theories about relationships reported longer and more intense jealousy than children who reported fixed (entity) theories about relationships. Findings from Study 2 (N = 42; M age = 10 years, 9 months) replicated Study 1 and additionally demonstrated that malleable theorists' time being jealous was spent generating more mastery‐oriented ways to deal with the situation as compared to fixed theorists.