Role Relationships and Behavior Between Preschool-Aged and School-Aged Sibling Pairs

Preschool-aged sibling pairs and school-age sibling pairs were observed in their homes while engaged in unstructured naturalistic activities. Seven roles were operationalized and observed: teacher, learner, manager, managee, helper, helpee, and observer. Instances of prosocial and agonistic behavior were also observed. The data obtained from these observations were subjected to two analyses. The unit of analysis in the first analysis was the total number of intervals that a role or behavior was performed. This analysis did not control for different rates of interaction. A second analysis that did control for different rates of interaction was then executed. The first analysis revealed that older siblings across both age groups assumed the manager and helper roles more often than their younger siblings, whereas the younger siblings assumed the observer, managee, and helpee roles more often than their older siblings. Several Age Group × Gender interactions were found. School-aged female siblings directed more prosocial behavior toward one another than any other Age Group × Gender combination. Preschool-aged male siblings directed more agonistic behavior toward one another than any other Age Group × Gender combination. Finally, Age of Group × Gender × Person (older sibling or younger sibling) interactions were found for the teacher and learner roles. Older school-aged females assumed the teacher role more often than any other older sibling, and younger school-aged females assumed the learner role more often than any other younger sibling. All of the aforementioned results were replicated when an analysis that controlled for differences in interaction rates was executed, with the exception of the Age of Sibling Group × Gender interaction on the prosocial measure.