Marina Jurkin

Percepcija kvalitete odnosa sa sestrom u mlađih adolescenata

Most people grow up in a family with at least one brother or a sister. The relationship betweensiblings can be marked with rivalry and conflict, but it can also be one of the closest and mostintimate relationships that a person has in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Unlike parentchildrelationships and children’s peer relationships, there is far less empirical research related tothe study of sibling relationships which is very surprising given that it is the longest relationshipof an individual’s life. With the exception of a research on a group of adults, in our country, aswe know, there was no systematic study of this relationship in the early stages of development.Accordingly, the aim of the study was to assess the quality of relationships with older or youngersister, in early adolescence. Participants in this study were 352 adolescents (192 girls and 160boys) ranging in age from 13 to 15. The mean age of the participants was 13.9 years. Adolescentassessed the relationship with the sister who is 1-5 years older or younger than them. Onesubgroup of respondents assessed the relationship with older sister (N = 181) and the other witha younger sister (N = 171). The data were collected by anonymous self-report questionnairecontaining the measures of the children’s perception of quality of sibling relationship. Resultsof the analysis of gender differences indicate that compared to boys, girls perceive significantlymore intimacy, cooperation, friendship and similarities in relationship with their sister. Therewere no significant differences between boys and girls on measures of negative aspects of thesibling relationship. Age difference proved to be significant in almost all measures of the qualityof sibling relationship. In accordance with the assumptions, adolescents and early adolescencehave better relations with their older sister.