Sibling Relationships in Adulthood: Contact Patterns and Motivations

Abstract

context of relationship quality variables (emotional closeness, sibling responsibility expectations, and conflict), and individual and family characteristics (sibling age differences, number of siblings, geographic proximity, sex of respondent, sex composition of sibling pair, and whether the respondent has coresident children). Through a two-stage systematic sampling procedure of telephone and mail surveys, a sample of 313 adults aged 25 years or older with living siblings was obtained from a southwest Virginia urban area. The proportion of variance explained by the predictors were significant and substantial for each criterion (dependent variable R2 s of. 65, .37, and .69). Emotional closeness, sibling responsibility expectations, and geographic proximity were most important in explaining dimensions of sibling interaction. These reflect the significance of internal states, cultural expectations and family norms, and practical opportunities for interaction, in matters concerning aspects of the sibling relationship. The sibling role potentially has the longest duration of any human relationship (Cicirelli, 1980b). Over 80% of American children grow up in a family that includes siblings (Mussen, Conger, and Kagan, 1974), and in late adulthood 79% have living siblings (Harris and Associates, 1975). There are cultural expectations that the sibling relationship should be more emotionally close, meaningful, and enduring than other interpersonal associations, as evidenced by denoting a close friend as like a or like a sister. In religious organizations, fraternal orders, or the military, the titles brother or sister connote solidarity and equality (Pollak, 1967). Liebow (1967) documented that impoverished urban blacks, lacking family ties, construct such associations by going for brothers as an attempt to create more stable, dependable relationships. Despite the prevalence of the sibling role in adulthood, and the expectations that sibling relationships be especially stable and emotionally close, the family relationships of siblings in adulthood have received little research attention. Research on family relationships across adulthood typically focuses upon the marital or parent-child pair and much less so upon the role that other kin may play in adult development. Most research on siblings has dealt with childhood or later life. For several decades, social and behavioral scientists have lamented the lack of research on adult sibling relationships (Cicirelli, 1980b; Goetting, 1986; Irish, 1965; Schvaneveldt and Ihinger, 1979; Streib and Beck, 1980). In conDepartment of Family and Human Development, Utah State University, UMC 29, Logan, UT 84322-2905.