Sibling Relatedness: Is it really just in our genes?

This topic submitted by Andrew Shafer and Anna Bowling (pippiMU@excite.com) at 10:38 pm on 3/1/01. Additions were last made on Wednesday, February 12, 2003. Section: Myers.

ÒThe sibling relationship has a distinctive emotional, passionate, painful, and solacing power which shapes the story of who we are and who we become.Ó The Sibling Bond by Stephen P. Bank & Michael D. Kahn: 1997. pp. xv

Hypothesis: The characteristics, emotions, love, etc. which are shared between siblings are not simply the result of their genes. But, rather through a long term relationship, mutual bonds of love, trust, and other aspects of unity are established. More specifically, the relationships and bonds demonstrated by biologically related siblings can also be seen in both step siblings and adopted siblings even though they are not related to one another.

In our project on sibling relationships we hope to support our hypothesis by thourghly researching sibling relationships and then using that information as a foundation for our own experimentation/data collection in an attempt to show a clear correlation between the relationships of biologically related siblings and those of adopted or step siblings.

In todayÕs society where divorce rates are high and family issues are prevalent, interfamily relationships are a hot topic. Wives and husbands want to know how to act around their spouses, parents want solutions to conflicts with their children, and both siblings and parents want to know what creates and maintains the strong bonds seen in sibling relationships. Through our research we hope to look at the general themes found in most sibling relationships, such as jealousy, love, trust, loyalty, and character. We then want to use those themes as a foundation for a more in depth look at the other kinds of sibling relationships found in families today- step siblings and adopted siblings. Is there an overall similarity and consistancy in the different relationships? And in going one step further we hope to answer the bigger question that there is consistency which proves that the characteristics seen in sibling relationships are not at the fate of our genes.

As mentioned above, we intend on first utilizing the research done by others as a foundation of knowledge for our own research project. There is a fairly large amount of information available which explains in detail the various aspects of a sibling relationship. Only once we have established what the common themes of a sibling relationship are can we then broaden our view to include adopted and step siblings, observing whether those relationships share the same themes as the biological sibling relationships.

Below is a list of some of the common themes seen throughout the information we have gathered thus far, and some of the references showing where we found the information:

* Emotional closeness and interdependence
- The Sibling Bond by Stephen P. Bank & Michael D. Kahn

* Compatability/Degree of relatedness (not speaking of genetically)
- The Sibling Bond by Stephen P. Bank & Michael D. Kahn

* Loyalty and Trust
- The Sibling Bond by Stephen P. Bank & Michael D. Kahn

* Competition
- Brothers & Sisters/ Sisters & Brothers by Helene S. Arnstein
- Siblings by Judy Dunn & Carol Kendrick

* Conflict
- Mixed Feelings by Francine Klagsbrun
- Sisters and Brothers by Judy Dunn

* Love
- Mixed Feelings by Francine Klagsbrun
- Brothers & Sisters/ Sisters & Brothers by Helene S. Arnstein

* Kinship/Caring
- Sibling Relationships Across the Life Span by Victor G. Cicirelli
- Brothers & Sisters/ Sisters & Brothers by Helene S. Arnstein

* Jealousy
- Brothers & Sisters/ Sisters & Brothers by Helene S. Arnstein
- Siblings by Judy Dunn & Carol Kendrick

* Understanding
- Sibling Relationships Across the Life Span by Victor G. Cicirelli
- Sisters and Brothers by Judy Dunn
- Siblings by Judy Dunn & Carol Kendrick

After establishing the common themes in sibling relationships and gathering a thorough amount of information to support those themes, we hope to develop our own research project. We plan on creating a survey which will ask detailed questions pertaining to the common themes we have
established in regards to sibling relationships. The survey will be circulated via a website which we plan on creating. On the website we intend to explain the purpose of the survey (our hypothesis) as well as instructions for filling out the survey. We realize that our survey audience will be quite large, but we hope to narrow down the number by specifying exactly what kinds of people we would like to have fill out the survey and including that information in our instructions.

In the book The Sibling Bond by Stephen P. Bank & Michael D. Kahn, the authors explain that sibling bonds depend upon something they call Òaccess.Ó Siblings who have very small ties to one another and little impact on each other are termed Òlow accessÓ and show the following kinds of characteristics: They are often separated by more than eight to ten years, share little time, or personal history, and they have not needed one another. Because access seriously affects sibling relationships, our research project is geared toward high access siblings. We want siblings who are close together in age, have a close shared history, and are needed by each other (or have been needed in the past). We hope to keep this uniformity as we study the different kinds of relationships (step, adopted, and biological).

With the results we gather from our survey we intend on compiling and analysing the data through tables and graphs. More specifically we want to create a table which shows the similarities and differences in our results and also a bar graph which will show the degree of relatedness between biological siblings versus step siblings versus adopted siblings using our data.

Through research and the gathering of our own data and results, we hope to prove that siblings are united by more than just their genes. We hope to show that step and adopted siblings can have relationships just a meaningful and unified as those of biological siblings. Perhaps our research can shed some light on the mysterious bonds siblings share with one another.

Time-line for Research Project:
March 3 - Survey questions created
March 7 - Begin composing website for survey
March 12 - Complete website for survey
April 7 - All research information (from references) gathered
April 13 - Survey results completed
April 20 - Survey results compiled into a table and graphs made
April 27 - Analysis of data complete and summary of results finished (show evidence that supports or disclaims your hypothesis)

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