Holding Parental Differential Treatment under a Microscope: Contributors and Outcomes

• In Event: Advancing and Understanding of Sibling Relationships

Abstract

Siblings often talk about many situations such as why their parents behave differently toward them compared to their siblings. Researchers focusing on such questions have studied parental differential treatment (PDT). PDT could be described as whether parents differ in behaviors toward their children and if so, to what extent treat them differently (Finzi-Dottan & Cohen, 2010). A number of factors play important roles in parental differential treatment (Jenkins et al., 2003) and PDT is closely related to the quality of sibling relationships (Shanahan et al., 2008). In that respect, the present study focused on two main aims. The first one was to examine structural, individual, and maternal contributors to maternal differential treatment (MDT). The second one was also to investigate the dyadic associations between MDT and attachment.
356 Turkish sibling pairs and their mothers participated. The siblings with a maximum age difference of 5 years were recruited. The scales measuring MDT (Bayram-Gülaçtı, 2020), temperament (Ellis & Rothbart, 2001), and sibling attachment (Tancredy & Fraley, 2006) were completed by sibling pairs and maternal familism values (Steidel & Contreras, 2003) and traditional vs. modern approaches in parenting (Bayram Gülaçtı, 2021) were completed by mothers.
A multivariate Analysis of Variance was conducted to examine whether gender-related factors are associated with MDT. The results showed that four gender groups did not differ in terms of experiencing MDT in positive and negative domains (F3, 351 = 1.61, ns, Wilk's Λ = .98, partial η2 = .014) for older siblings and for younger siblings (F3, 351 = 1.62, ns, Wilk's Λ = .97, partial η2 = .014). Also, hierarchical regression analyses were separately run for older and younger siblings to test the predictor roles of gender composition, each sibling’s negative affect and perceptual sensitivity as well as maternal familism values and approaches to parenting in differential treatment. According to these four analyses, siblings’ temperamental traits (either negative affect or perceptual sensitivity), but not other structural and maternal factors, were significant contributors to MDT for older and younger siblings (e.g. Table 1). Moreover, Actor-Partner Interdependence Model analyses in the AMOS program were executed to explore the dyadic association between older and younger siblings’ perceptions of MDT and attachment to each other. Based on the findings concerning the differential treatment in positive domains, both actor and partner effects were found to be significant in predicting sibling attachment after controlling for the gender of each sibling (χ2 (2, N = 356) = 5.64, χ2 /df = 2.82, p =.06, CFI=.96, GFI = .995, RMSEA = .07). Furthermore, the model testing the dyadic association between differential treatment in negative domains and sibling attachment showed that only actor effects were significant (χ2 (3, N = 356) = 6.70, χ2 /df = 2.23, p =.08, CFI=.96, GFI = .993, RMSEA = .06) (e.g. Figure 1). It could be stated that the present study had a unique contribution to the literature by assessing not only the predictors but also the outcomes of MDT.

Authors

• Hurigul Bayram Gulacti, Ankara Haci Bayram Veli University
  Presenting Author

• Sibel KazakBerument, Middle East Technical University