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Sibling Differences in Divorced FamiliesAuthor(s): Susanne C. Monahan, Christy M. Buchanan, Eleanor E. Maccoby and Sanford M.DornbuschReviewed work(s):Source: Child Development, Vol. 64, No. 1 (Feb., 1993), pp. 152-168Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the Society for Research in Child DevelopmentStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1131443 .Accessed: 14/07/2012 13:44

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Sibling Differences in Divorced Families

Susanne C. Monahan, Christy M. Buchanan,Eleanor E. Maccoby, and Sanford M. Dornbusch

Stanford University

MONAHAN, SUSANNE C.; BUCHANAN, CHRISTY M.; MACCOBY, ELEANOR .; and DORNBUSCH, ANFORDM. Sibling Differences in Divorced Families. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 993, 64, 152-168. Siblingdifferences in family processes and individual adjustment were examined for 133 sibling pairs(10-18 years old) in divorced families. Although all siblings differed, siblings who lived apartafter their parents' divorce differed more than siblings who lived together, contradicting pastresearch that found negligible effects of shared environment on sibling similarities. The possibil-ity that siblings might live apart because they were initially more different was considered. Thishypothesis was not supported in the limited tests permitted by the data. Differences in familyprocesses were associated with differences in adjustment for pairs who lived together as well aspairs who lived apart.

Recent work challenges the assumptionthat children in the same family experiencea shared environment. Some have arguedthat similarities among siblings are primar-ily attributable to genetic influences (Buss& Plomin, 1984; Daniels, Dunn, Fursten-berg, & Plomin, 1985; Rowe, 1983), and thatenvironmental influences differentiate sib-lings, making them as different from oneanother as children in different families(Daniels et al., 1985; Dunn, 1983; Dunn &Plomin, 1990; Plomin & Daniels, 1987;Rowe & Plomin, 1981; Scarr & Grajek,1982). In light of this, it is perhaps not sur-prising that adolescents in the same familyoften respond differently to a shared pivotalevent such as divorce. Within divorced fami-lies, sibling correlations for adjustment out-comes like depression, delinquency, schooloutcomes, and feelings of being caught be-tween parents are low to moderate (Bu-chanan, Maccoby, & Dornbusch, 1991).

Rowe and Plomin (1981) outlined a con-ceptual framework for understanding differ-ential sibling experiences, identifying fam-ily composition (e.g., birth order, gender),sibling interaction, parental treatment, andextrafamilial networks (e.g., peer groups,teachers, television) as areas in which sib-lings may experience nonshared environ-ments. Researchers have found that siblingsexperience different environments (e.g.,Dunn, 1983; Snow, Jacklin, & Maccoby,

1981), and different environments are asso-ciated with differences in sibling adjust-ment. In a study measuring differences inenvironment, Daniels and Plomin (1985)found that adolescents believed that theywere treated differently by siblings and bypeers and, to a lesser extent, by parents. Inaddition, Daniels et al. (1985) found that dif-ferential sibling adjustment was predictedby differences in parental treatment (i.e.,parent reports of differences in how theytreat their children and differences in indi-vidual child reports of how their parentstreat them). For example, the sibling whowas expected to do more chores was less de-linquent; similarly, the sibling to whommothers reported being closer was less emo-tionally distressed. The association betweendifferences in these types of family pro-cesses and differences in sibling adjustmentis not surprising because we know that dif-ferences in processes are related to differ-ences in children's adjustment across fam-ilies.

The relation between demographic fac-tors (e.g., birth order, sex) and sibling differ-ences has also been investigated, and foundto explain only 1% to 10% of the variancein differential sibling adjustment (Plomin &Foch, 1980; Scarr & Grajek, 1982). Danielset al. (1985) found that other demographicfactors such as family size, birth spacing,level of father's education, marital status,

This research was supported by the W.T. Grant Foundation, grant 88119688 to Eleanor E.Maccoby and Sanford M. Dornbusch. We would like to thank Sue Dimicelli for her technicalassistance, and two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and constructive comments onearlier drafts of this paper. Address correspondence to the authors at the Center for the Study ofFamilies, Children, and Youth, Stanford University, Building 460, Stanford, CA 94305-2135.

[Child Development, 1993, 64, 152-168. ? 1993 by the Society for Research n Child Development, Inc.All rights reserved. 0009-3920/93/6401-0007$01.00]

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Monahan et al. 153

and ethnicity were also weak predictors ofdifferences in developmental adjustment,each explaining less than 2% of the variancein sibling differences. In the same study,

only 1% to 4% of the variance in adjustmentdifferences was predicted by age difference,although the sample had a limited age range.Because children who are not at the samedevelopmental stage may be treated differ-ently or may respond differently to similarevents and family processes, researchersshould control for the effects of age on sib-ling differences, especially when there is awide age range within the sample.

Previous work on nonshared environ-ments provides direction for understand-ing sibling differences in divorced families.When considering postdivorce adjustment,however, there are environmental factors ofinterest that are specific to the divorce situa-tion; for example, siblings may experiencedifferent residential arrangements or pat-terns of visitation with the nonresidentialparent. When siblings live in different resi-dences (i.e., have a split-residence arrange-ment), this may be viewed as an extremecase of nonshared environment. While theyshare the same

parentsand a

historyof

livingtogether and of family disruption, they donot currently share a home environment.If the unshared environmental elementswithin a home differentiate siblings as muchas environments across homes differentiateunrelated children, then we would expectthat siblings who live apart after their par-ents' divorce will look no more differentthan siblings who live together. Alterna-tively, if sharing a home environment oper-ates to cause sibling similarities, we would

expectthat

siblings who live apart after adivorce will look more different than sib-lings who live together.

If living in separate residences is a dif-ferentiating factor, the magnitude of sib-ling differences should depend on the totalamount of time siblings have spent in ashared or split residence. Sibling differencesmay also be influenced by differences in thetotal amount of visitation contact that eachchild has with the nonresidential parent. Asibling who sees his or her nonresiden-tial parent frequently may adjust better, orconceivably worse (see Johnston, Kline, &Tschann, 1989), to the divorce situation thandoes a sibling who seldom sees the nonresi-dential parent.

This paper has a dual emphasis. First,we will explore divorce-specific environ-mental influences, such as similar or differ-

ent residential history, that may be associ-ated with sibling differences in adjustment.Second, we will attempt to replicate findingsconcerning the association between within-

household nonshared environments and dif-ferences in sibling adjustment. Becauseadolescent adjustment is associated with af-fective relationships between parents andchildren (e.g., Buchanan, Maccoby, & Dorn-busch, 1992; Fauber, Forehand, Thomas, &Wierson, 1990; Guidibaldi, Cleminshaw,Perry, Nastasi, & Lightel, 1986) as well asstyles of parental control and management(Buchanan et al., 1992; Dornbusch, Rit-ter, Leiderman, Roberts, & Fraleigh, 1987;Dornbusch, Ritter, Mont-Reynaud, & Chen,1990; Guidibaldi et al., 1986; Hetherington& Clingempeel, 1992), we will examine bothof these aspects of the home environment.

Method

SampleOur sample of sibling pairs was drawn

from the Stanford Adolescent CustodyStudy. See Buchanan et al. (in press) for amore detailed description of the proceduresand the sample for that study, including in-formation on the ethnicity and socioeco-nomic status of subjects. Adolescents whoseparents had filed for divorce in two northernCalifornia counties between September1984 and March 1985 were interviewed ap-proximately 41/2 years (T4) following theirparents' separation. Their parents had beeninterviewed by telephone 6 months (T1),11/2 ears (T2), and 31/2years (T3) after sepa-ration as part of a related project, the Stan-ford Child Custody Study (see Maccoby,Depner, & Mnookin, 1990, for a descriptionof that

sample).Interviews with adolescents, averaging1 hour in length, were conducted by tele-phone. In order to maximize the reliabilityand validity of the information collected, in-terviewers went through a minimum of 35hours of training, much of which focused ondeveloping and maintaining rapport withthe adolescents. Prior to scheduled inter-views, interviewers mailed respondents acopy of the scales needed to answer ques-tions. Adolescents who lost the scales sheetor did not receive it in the mail were askedto copy the scales onto a sheet of paper asthe interviewer described them. At the con-clusion of the interivew, adolescents weresent 10 dollars and a letter thanking them forparticipating.

For the current study on sibling dif-ferences, we selected all sibling pairs in

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154 Child Development

families where two children had been in-terviewed. In addition, we selected two sib-lings from each family in which three ormore siblings had been interviewed. From

these larger families, we selected same-sexpairs because there were fewer boy-boy orgirl-girl pairs than mixed-sex pairs in fami-lies where only two siblings were inter-viewed. When there was more than onesame-sex sibling pair in a family, the siblingpair was selected randomly. This procedureyielded 136 sibling pairs.

Adolescents ranged in age from 10 to 18years. Sibling age difference ranged from 0(twins) to 7 years; the average age differencewas 2.8

years. Fifty-eightof the sibling pairs

were mixed-sex (with sister older in 26 ofthe pairs and brother older in 32 of thepairs), and 75 were same-sex pairs (35 sisterpairs and 40 brother pairs). At the time of theadolescent interview (T4), 86 of the siblingpairs lived primarily with their mother, 12lived primarily with their father, 10 lived indual-residence arrangements, and 25 livedin split-residence arrangements (19 mother/father, 4 mother/dual, 2 father/dual).1 Threesibling pairs were excluded from the analy-

ses because one of the siblings had not livedwith one or both parents in the past year,leaving 133 sibling pairs in the final sample.

Sibling residence had also been as-sessed in each of the three previous inter-viewing waves. Considering all four avail-able time points, the majority of pairs (84)had lived together in the same residentialarrangement since their parents' separation;15 pairs had shifted residence at least once,but had shifted together; 19 pairs were splitwhen only one sibling shifted residential ar-rangement; and in 14 pairs, both siblingsshifted residential arrangement, but inde-pendently of each other. Thus, a total of 99pairs had shared a residential arrangementat all time points since their parents' separa-tion; of the remaining pairs, two had never

shared a residential arrangement, four hadshared an arrangement at only one interviewwave, 14 had shared an arrangement at twointerview waves, and 14 had shared an ar-

rangement at three interview waves.Measures

Table 1 presents the descriptive statis-tics for the measures used. For householdorganization, parental monitoring, closenessto the residential parent, and average parent-child conflict, we used the adolescent's re-port about the primary residential parent.For adolescents in dual residence, the meanscore of the child's reports of each parentwas used. Similarly, the residential parent's

perceptionsof child

irritabilityat

T1and

pa-rental involvement at T3 were used. For ad-olescents in dual residence, if both parents'reports were available, then a mean scorewas computed. Children living in dual-resi-dence arrangements perceived relativelysimilar environments across homes;2 using amean score to represent their experiencesallowed us to approximate the overall envi-ronment of dual-residence children. We did,however, perform all analyses using thescores for the dual-resident parent with

whom the child spent the most absolute time(mean scores were still used for adolescentswho split their time exactly evenly betweenhomes), and the results did not change.

Parent's education.-A 7-point scalewas used to indicate the highest level of ed-ucation completed, where 2 = grade 0-8,3 = grade 9-12, 4 = high school graduate(with or without some non-college training),5 = some college, 6 = college graduate, 7= some graduate or professional training,

and 8=

completed graduate degree.Child irritability.-Child irritability

was a composite of three questions from theinterview of the residential parent at T1.Parents were asked how often the child re-sisted when the parent asked him or her to

1Residence refers o de facto residence rather han egal custody. Children n mother esi-dence spent 11 or moreovernights very 2 weeks with heir mothers.Children n father esidencespent 11 or more overnights very 2 weeks with their fathers. Children n dual residence pentat least four overnights every 2 weeks, at least 1 week out of the month, or at least 3 months (notall

vacation)each

yearwith each

parent.Children in

split-residence arrangementshad different

residential arrangements.2 Our sample included 26 adolescents who lived in dual-residence arrangements. Paired t

tests indicated that dual-residence adolescents experienced significantly different environmentsacross their two homes, although the magnitude of the differences was substantially lower thanthe size of the differences reported by siblings living together in a sole-residence (mother, father)arrangement. This may indicate that a child in a dual-residence arrangement experiences a moresimilar environment across two homes than does a sibling pair within a single home. Alterna-tively, there may be a problem with reporting bias where a single reporter perceives two settingsto be more similar than two reporters perceive a single setting to be.

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Monahan et al. 155

TABLE 1

DESCRIPTIVE TATISTICS

OLDER YOUNGERSIBLING SIBLING

Na M (SD) M (SD) Min Max

Demographics:Parent's education ........ 133 5.3 (1.3) ... 2.5 8Age ................................. 266 14.3 (2.3) 12.8 (1.9) 10 18

Preexisting characteristics:Child irritability (T1)... 194 8.1 (2.3) 8.0 (2.2) 4 14Father hostility (T1) ..... 86 5.7 (2.2) ... 1 10Mother hostility (T1).... 115 5.3 (2.2) ... 1 10

Family processes:Involvement of pri-

mary residentialparent (T3)................. 238 8.0 (2.3) 8.5 (1.7) 2 10Household organi-

zation.......................... 266 36.9 (9.1) 38.3 (9.3) 9 54Parental monitoring...... 256 11.6 (2.4) 11.7 (2.3) 5 15Closeness to residen-

tial parent................... 266 35.4 (7.1) 35.4 (7.6) 10 45Closeness to nonres-

idential parent........... 228 31.7 (8.2) 32.7 (8.5) 10 45Average parent-child

conflict........................ 256 2.0 (.9) 1.9 (.9) 1 5Caught ........................... 266 5.1 (3.1) 4.7 (2.8) 0 12

Psychosocial adjustment:

Depression .................... 266 16.6 (6.7) 15.4 (7.3) 0 30School deviance............ 265 8.3 (2.6) 6.7 (2.3) 4 16Substance use ............... 266 8.5 (3.5) 7.0 (2.4) 6 24Antisocial behavior....... 266 5.7 (1.2) 5.6 (1.2) 5 11Grades............................ 266 5.6 (1.8) 5.8 (1.7) 1 8School effort.................. 246 14.3 (3.8) 15.0 (2.7) 5 24"Worst of three" ........... 266 113.8 (15.0) 109.3 (13.3) 83.7 168.1

a Parent's education, mother hostility, and father hostility are family-level measures; N indi-cates the number of families for whom this measure was available. For all other measures, Nindicates the number of children for whom the measure was available.

do something (1 = usually resists or arguesto 5 = usually agrees cheerfully and will-ingly), how often the child lost his or hertemper (1 = never to 5 = very often), andhow often the child was irritable or sullen(1 = never to 5 = very often). Cronbach'salpha for this measure was .83.

Father hostility/mother hostility.-In-terviewers rated the general hostility of eachparent toward the ex-spouse at T1, using ascale where 1 = someone who speaks quite

favorablyabout the

ex-spouseto 10 = some-

one who is extremely bitter, hostile, andcritical.

Depression.-Using a scale rangingfrom 0 = never to 3 = 3 or more times, ado-lescents told us how often they had experi-enced 10 physical (e.g., headache, stomachache, trouble sleeping) and emotional (e.g.,

felt lonely, felt "low" ordepressed,

felt ner-vous) symptoms in the month preceding theinterview (Buchanan et al., 1991). Cron-bach's alpha for these items was .83.

School deviance.-Using a scale rang-ing from 1 = never to 4 = often, adoles-cents told us how often in the preceding 12months they had copied homework, cheated,come to class late, and skipped class (Dorn-busch, Mont-Reynaud, Ritter, Chen, &Steinberg, 1991). Cronbach's alpha for theschool deviance measure was .70.

Substance use.-Using a scale rangingfrom 1 = never to 4 = often, adolescentstold us how often in the preceding 12months they had smoked cigarettes, boughtbeer, used a phony ID, been drunk, smokedmarijuana, and used a drug other than mari-juana (Dornbusch et al., 1991). Cronbach'salpha for this measure was .83.

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Antisocial behavior.-Using a scaleranging from 1 = never to 4 = often, adoles-cents told us how often in the preceding 12months they had carried a weapon to school,gotten into a physical fight at school, dam-aged school property on purpose, stolensomething of value from another person, andgotten in trouble with the police (Dornbuschet al., 1991). Cronbach's alpha for antisocialbehavior was .53.

Grades.-Adolescents were asked todescribe their grades in recent years usingcategories ranging from "mostly A's," "abouthalf A's and half B's," "mostly B's," to"mostly below D" (Dornbusch et al., 1987).

Categories were ranked from 1 (lowest) to 8(highest). High school dropouts did not an-swer this question, and for the purposes ofanalysis were assigned a score for gradesequal to the grade for the tenth percentile("about half C's and half D's").

School effort.-The school effort com-posite consisted of four items, adapted fromNatriello and Dornbusch (1984). "How of-ten do you really pay attention to the class-work during your classes?" and "In general,how often does your mind wander in yourclasses" were rated on a 6-point scale where1 = almost never and 6 = almost always. Inaddition, there were two questions measur-ing the amount of time spent on homework.These four questions were not asked of highschool graduates. Cronbach's alpha for thefour items was .55.

"Worst of three".-Because adolescentsmay exhibit adjustment problems in dif-ferent ways (i.e., one might become de-pressed while another acts out or slacks off

in school), a score was constructed that rep-resented an adolescent's worst problem.After standardizing depression, delin-quency, and school effort by assigning amean of 100 and a standard deviation of 16to each, "worst of three" was defined as themaximum of the three scores.

Involvement of the primary residentialparent.-Parental involvement was a singleitem asked of the child's primary residentialparent in an interview at T3. Parents weregiven examples of types of involvement andthen asked, "Thinking of what is relevant toyou, how involved are you in your child'slife?" Responses ranged from 1 = low in-volvement to 10 = high involvement. Par-ents responded separately for each child thatlived with them.

Household organization.-Using ascale from 1 = almost never to 6 = almost

always, adolescents told us how often cer-tain routines occurred in their homes: eat-ing an evening meal with family members,knowing when family members would ar-rive home in the evening, studying in thesame place each day, eating at the same timeeach evening, being expected to be homefor dinner, knowing who was responsible forchores, chores getting done when they weresupposed to, having a regular time for clean-ing the house, and being able to count ongetting telephone messages (Buchanan etal., 1992). The household organization com-posite was a sum of these items for the resi-dential home, with a Cronbach's alpha of.78.

Parental monitoring.-To measuremonitoring, we asked adolescents how muchtheir residential parent really knew aboutwhere they went at night, how they spenttheir money, what they did with their freetime, where they were most afternoons afterschool, and who their friends were (Lam-born, Dornbusch, & Kraemer, 1990). Re-sponses were rated on a scale where 1 =doesn't know, 2 = knows a little, and 3 =knows a lot. Cronbach's alpha for this mea-sure was .75.

Closeness to residential and nonresi-dential parent.-The closeness measurewas a composite of items asked about eachparent. Closeness to the nonresidential par-ent was not computed for siblings in dualresidence. Using a scale from 1 = not at allto 5 = very, adolescents responded to ninequestions regarding issues such as howopenly they talked with their parents, howcomfortable they felt admitting fears to par-ents or asking for help from them, how closethey felt to their parents, how interestedtheir parents were in them, and how oftentheir parents acted affectionately towardsthem (Buchanan et al., 1992). Cronbach'salpha for this measure was .88 for the resi-dential parent and .91 for the nonresidentialparent.

Average parent-child conflict.-Weasked adolescents whether they had dis-cussed the following topics with their resi-

dential parent in the preceding 2 weeks: do-ing chores, having friends over when theirparents were not home, letting their parentsknow where they were when they were outof the house, curfews, which friends theyspent time with, and other things they couldor should have done. For the discussionsthey had, they were asked to rate how angrythe discussions were, using a scale from 1

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Monahan et al. 157

= not at all angry to 5 = extremely angry.Adolescents who had not discussed any ofthese topics with their residential parentwere assigned the lowest conflict score, 1.

This conflict scale was adapted fromSteinberg (1988).

Feelings of being caught between par-ents.-The following paired questions wereasked about each parent: "Does mother askquestions about father [and father aboutmother]?" ("yes" or "no" response); "Howoften does mother ask you to carry messagesto father [and father to mother]?" (scaleranged from 1 = never to 4 = very often);and "How often do you hesitate to talk about

dad to mom [and mom to dad]?" (scaleranged from 1 = never to 4 = very often). Avariable representing the maximum score foreach of the three pairs was created; thesevariables were then standardized and addedtogether with the standardized score for"How often do you feel caught in the middlebetween your parents?" (scale ranged from 1= never to 4 = very often), creating a caughtcomposite that ranged from 0 to 12 (Bu-chanan et al., 1991). Cronbach's alpha for the"caught" composite was .64.

ResultsMeasures of Sibling Differences

We considered three general issues inconstructing our measures of sibling differ-ences: (1) which model of sibling differ-ences (e.g., difference scores, residualizedgain scores) was most appropriate for thequestions we were addressing; (2) given ourdecision to use difference scores to repre-sent sibling differences, whether we shoulduse relative or absolute

siblingdifference

scores; and (3) how to adjust for differencesin our measures due to age.

In this study, we hypothesized positiverelations between aspects of environment(e.g., time shared, magnitude of differencesin perceived parenting practices) and themagnitude of differences in reported adjust-ment. Rovine (in press) argues that the useof difference scores is appropriate when test-ing hypotheses predicting the magnitude ofsibling differences. Because we did not hy-pothesize that the older sibling's rank in the

distribution of all older siblings was relatedto the younger sibling's rank in the distribu-tion of all younger siblings, residualizedgain scores were not appropriate (Rovine, in

press).Relative difference scores are used

when birth order hypotheses are tested; thesign (+ or -) of the difference indicateswhich sibling, the older or younger, re-ported a higher score on a given attribute(Rovine, in press). In this study, we did nottest a birth-order hypothesis. Because wewere interested in any difference betweensiblings, regardless of its direction, we com-puted difference scores as the absolute valueof the difference between the two

siblings.Although we were not interested inquestions of birth order, we did want to ac-curately characterize differences betweensiblings given their differences in age.Across the sample, age was strongly relatedto individual scores on most of our processand adjustment measures.3 Simple absolutedifference scores did not adequately accountfor differences in parenting or adjustmentthat would be expected based on age differ-ences. For example, one sibling pair-an 18-year-old boy and his 15-year-old brother-had identical depression scores of 16. Al-though their raw scores were the same, theolder sibling's score was about the same asthe average 18-year-old's score in our study,while the younger sibling's score was higherthan the score of the average 15-year-old inour sample. Because of their age difference,these siblings were more different from eachother regarding depression than their rawscores indicated. To adequately characterizethis discrepancy, we converted individualraw scores for measures of family processand individual adjustment into residualscores, where an individual's residual scorerepresented the degree to which he or shedeviated from the average score of his or herage cohort on a given measure. These resid-ual scores were then used to create the sib-ling difference measures.4 In sum, discrep-ancy scores were used to represent siblingdifferences, and these scores were com-puted as the absolute value of the differencebetween the two siblings' age-residualizedscores for any given measure.

3Age was positively associated with feeling caught between parents, depression, schooldeviance, substance use, antisocial behavior, and "worst of three," and negatively associatedwith parental involvement, household organization, parental monitoring, closeness to the resi-dential and nonresidential parent, grades, and school effort. Only average parent-child conflictwas not related to age.

4 We also performed analyses using difference scores without age residuals. Results usingresiduals are, if anything, more conservative.

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AnalysesWe employed a variety of methods to

address the research questions: (1) How dif-ferent are siblings from one another? and (2)

What factors predict sibling differences?Sibling similarities were examined usingintraclass sibling correlations; we then ex-plored, using correlations, simple regres-sion, and analysis of variance, the effectsof level of parent's education and sibling-pair sex composition on sibling differences.We used analysis of variance to investigatewhether the size of sibling differences var-ied across residential arrangements. Pearsoncorrelations were used to test the associationbetween total amount of shared time in a

residential arrangement and sibling differ-ences, and to explore whether differences inperceptions of family processes were sys-tematically related to differences in percep-tions of sibling adjustment. Finally, we usedcorrelation and discriminant analyses (e.g.,logistic regression, contingency table analy-sis) to explore the possibility that sibling dif-ferences were the cause, and not the effect,of nonshared environments.

Sibling CorrelationsIntraclass

siblingcorrelations for

per-ceptions of family processes and self-re-ported psychosocial adjustment (see Table2) are based on age residual scores. For the

most part, the sibling correlations for adjust-ment were significant but low, ranging from.15 for depression, school effort, and "worstof three" to .27 for substance use. The corre-

lations for sibling perceptions of family pro-cesses were somewhat higher (as high as .35for feelings of being caught between par-ents). The sibling correlations were lowenough to indicate that children in the samefamily frequently differed in their reportedexperiences of family processes and, espe-cially, in their adjustment. Not surprisingly,sibling correlations based on residential par-ent reports of child irritability at T1 and pa-rental involvement with each sibling at T3(one reporter for both siblings) were higherthan the correlations using individual childreports (different reporters for each sibling)of processes and outcomes.

Level of Parent's Education and SexComposition

Same-sex pairs of siblings were notmore similar to each other than opposite-sexpairs. We used ANOVA to predict processand adjustment difference scores with sexgrouping. Sex grouping predicted differ-ences in school deviance, F(2, 129) = 2.50,

p - .10, and antisocial behavior, F(2, 130)=

4.42, p - .05. Post-hoc t tests indicated thatsister-sister pairs reported larger differencesin school deviance than did brother-brother

TABLE 2

INTRACLASS IBLINGCORRELATIONS

Correlation (N)

Preexisting child characteristics:Child irritability

................................... .61****(97)

Family processes:Involvement of primary

residential parent (T3).......................55**** (86)Household organization........................27**** (133)Parental monitoring............................... 09 (123)Closeness to residential parent............33**** (133)Closeness to nonresidential parent.... .32**** (115)Average parent-child conflict ...............27**** (123)Caught .............................................. 35**** (133)Psychosocial adjustment:D epression............................................ .15* (133)School deviance .................................... .16* (132)Substance use ....................................... .27**** (133)Antisocial behavior............................... .03 (133)Grades

................................................ .22*** (133)

Schooleffort.........................................

15* (113)"W orst of three" ................................... .15* (133)

+ p .10.p

-5.05.

Sp .01.*p .001.

. p .0001.

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Monahan et al. 159

pairs (t = 2.18, p-

.05), and that brother-brother pairs reported larger differences inantisocial behavior than did sister-sisterpairs (t = 2.88, p - .01) or opposite-sex pairs

(t=

2.25, p:

.05). In general, however, sib-ling perceptions of family processes and in-dividual adjustment did not vary signifi-cantly across brother-brother, sister-sister,and mixed-sex pairs. Sex grouping explained4% of the variance in school deviance, 6% ofthe variance in antisocial behavior, and lessthan 3% of the variance in sibling differencescores for the other measures.

The size of sibling differences was alsolargely unrelated to parental education.Level of parent's education was significantlycorrelated (r = -.21, p

-.05) with sibling

differences in parental monitoring: siblingswhose parents had more education reportedsmaller differences in monitoring. Other dif-ferences in family processes and sibling ad-justment were not, however, correlated withlevel of parent's education. Differences inparental involvement at T3, household or-ganization, closeness to the nonresidentialparent, substance use, antisocial behavior,grades, and "worst of three" had negativebut

insignificantcorrelations with level of

parent's education, ranging from less than-.01 to -.14. Correlations between level ofparent's education and differences in close-ness to the residential parent, parent-childconflict, caught, depression, school devi-ance, and school effort were also low butpositive, ranging from less than .01 to .06.Parent's education explained 5% of the vari-ance in differences in parental monitoringand between 0% and 2% of the variance inother sibling difference scores.

Residence Factors and Sibling DifferencesAnalysis of variance was used to predict

differences in sibling reports of family pro-cesses and child adjustment with T4 resi-dential arrangement (mother, father, dual,split). Siblings in split residence were sig-nificantly more different from one anotherthan siblings who lived together in mother,father, or dual residence with regard to pa-rental involvement, household organization,closeness to the nonresidential parent, av-erage conflict with residential parent, sub-stance use, and school effort (see Table 3).Although differences in other process andadjustment scores did not vary significantlyby residential arrangement, the magnitudeof the differences was consistently higherfor split-residence siblings than for siblingswho shared a residence (e.g., parental moni-toring, closeness to the residential parent,

antisocial behavior, "worst of three"). Resi-dence explained between 1% and 13% of thevariance in sibling difference scores.

Although siblings in split residencegenerally reported the largest differences inprocesses and adjustment, siblings living inthe same residence were also significantlydifferent from one another. Using pairedt tests, we compared sibling scores withineach of the four residential arrangementsand found that, for all measures, differencesbetween siblings were significantly greaterthan zero (p

-.05).

Are the greater differences among sib-ling pairs in split residence the result of sib-

lings living in different residences at T4? Orare differences the result of a greater totalamount of time that siblings have spent liv-ing apart since their parents' separation? Tolook at this, we created a measure, which wecall "shared time," to indicate the numberof interviewing waves at which siblingsshared a residential arrangement. Values forthis measure ranged from 0 to 4 (mean =3.5, SD = 0.9). Table 4 shows the zero-ordercorrelations between amount of shared timeand age-adjusted sibling differences in fam-ily processes and adolescent adjustment.The correlations confirm that the more timesibling pairs spent in a shared residentialarrangement, the more similar were theirreports of family processes and individualadjustment, implying a cumulative effect ofshared time. Sibling differences were notsimply determined by whether or not sib-lings had been split at the time of the fourthinterview, but also by the amount of timethey had been apart. Although shared timeexplained fairly small amounts of the vari-ance in difference scores (24% for parentalinvolvement at T3, and between 0% and12% or the other difference scores), it was amore powerful predictor of differences thandemographic factors such as sex groupingand level of parent's education.

Paired t tests indicated that siblingswho had never lived apart (n = 99), and thuspresumably had the greatest shared back-grounds, still differed significantly in theirreports of processes and adjustment, point-ing to the effects of within-home nonsharedenvironment, in addition to the differencesthat stemmed from having lived in differenthouseholds.

The findings on split residence suggestthat either (1) different households providesufficiently different environments to pro-voke sibling differences in adjustment, or (2)

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Monahan et al. 161

TABLE 4

ZERO-ORDER CORRELATIONS BETWEEN SHARED TIME AND DIFFERENCES INPERCEPTIONS OF FAMILY PROCESS AND PSYCHOSOCIAL ADJUSTMENT

Correlation withShared Time (N) R2

Family processes:Involvement of primary -.49**** (117) .24

residential parent (T3)................................Household organization ................................ - .18* (133) .03Parental monitoring ....................................... -.17+ (123) .03Average parent-child conflict......................... -.26** (123) .07Closeness to residential parent .................... -.17+ (133) .03Closeness to nonresidential parent............... -.25** (115) .04Caught........................... .. .............. -.02 (133) .00

Psychosocial adjustment:

Depression ..................................... ............... .02 (133) .00School deviance......................... ..............-.02 (132) .00

Substanceuse........................................ -.35** (133) .12Antisocial behavior ........................................ -.25** (133) .06

Grades............................................. ..............

- .06 (133) .00School effort

................................... ..............-.23* (113) .05

"Worst ofthree"......................................

-.12 (133) .01+ p - .10.* p .05.** p .01.***p .001.****p 5.0001.

siblings who differ most select into, or areplaced into, different households. The firstpossibility implies that siblings in the samehousehold have more similar experiencesthan siblings living in split households, andthat these similarities predict similarities inadjustment. Alternatively, however, siblingswho are most different from each other onsome preexisting dimensions may be morelikely to end up living apart after divorce.

Siblings may select environments based ontheir differences, or parents may select forthem. In other words, sibling differencesmay be the cause and not the result of differ-ences in environments. Next we addressthese possibilities.Nonshared Environments and PsychosocialAdjustment

To address the hypothesis that differentenvironments provoke different adjustment,we looked directly at the association be-tween sibling differences in perceptions offamily processes and sibling differences inself-reported adjustment. Table 5 presentsthe Pearson correlation coefficients and theamount of explained variance for (1) all sib-ling pairs, including those who had livedapart, and (2) the subsample of sibling pairswho had always shared a residential arrange-ment. We included data on the subsample

that had never lived apart because we wereconcerned about confounding the effects ofdifferences in perceptions of family pro-cesses in the same household with the ef-fects of living in separate households.

As the results in Table 5 show, siblingdifferences in peceptions of family pro-cesses were generally positively associatedwith differences in reported adjustment.

Ninety-eightcorrelations were

performed.Of the correlations that were significant at p< .10, 33 were positive, while only two werenegative, indicating that larger differencesin perceptions of environmental influenceswere associated with larger differences inreported adjustment. For example, differ-ences in sibling reports of household organi-zation were positively associated with dif-ferences in depression, substance use,grades, school effort, and "worst of three."Likewise, larger differences in parent-childconflict

were associated with larger differ-ences in substance use, antisocial behavior,grades, school effort, and "worst of three."

Correlations between differences inperceptions of family processes and differ-ences in reported adjustment weakenedsomewhat when the sample was limited tothose pairs who had always shared a residen-

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TABLE 5

CORRELATIONS BETWEEN DIFFERENCES IN PERCEPTIONS OF FAMILY PROCESSES ANDDIFFERENCES IN REPORTS OF PSYCHOSOCIAL ADJUSTMENT

PAIRSWHO HAVEALL SIBLING ALWAYS LIVED

PAIRS TOGETHER

(N = 94-133) (N = 72-99)FAMILY ROCESS r R R2

Primary residential parent's report ofparental involvement:

Depression ......................................... -.05 .00 - .07 .00School deviance

...................................04 .00 -.03 .00

Substance use .................................... .06 .00 .02 .00Antisocial behavior............................ .25** .06 .33** .11Grades

...................................................04 .00 .00 .00

School effort........................................

.17+ .03 .33* .11"Worst of three"

..................................06 .00 .07 .00

Child's report of household organization:

Depression ......................................... .16+ .03 .17+ .03School deviance..................................

.04 .00 .04 .00Substance use .................................... .14+ .02 .12 .01Antisocial behavior ........................... .08 .01 .12 .01Grades

............................................... 19* .04 .15 .02School effort ..................................... .31*** .10 .26* .07"Worst of three"

..................................30*** .09 .30** .09

Child's report of parental monitoring:Depression ......................................... .12 .01 .18+ .03School deviance

...................................03 .00 .06 .00

Substance use .................................... .16+ .03 .06 .00Antisocial behavior

..............................13 .02 .10 .01

Grades ................................................ - .04 .00 - .15 .02School effort ...................................... .01 .00 -.01 .00"Worst of three" ................................. .17+ .03 .22* .05Child's report of closeness to the resi-

dential parent:Depression ......................................... -.21* .04 -.20* .04School deviance

...................................13 .02 .18+ .03

Substance use .................................... .07 .00 -.02 .00Antisocial behavior ........................... .25** .06 .24* .06Grades

............................................ . 05 .00 .08 .01School effort ...................................... .18+ .03 .13 .02"Worst of three"................................. 05 .00 -.07 .00

Child's report of closeness to the non-residential parent:

Depression ......................................... -.05 .00 -.04 .00School deviance.................................

- .05 .00 .01 .00Substance use .................................... .16+ .03 .17 .03Antisocial behavior

..............................12 .02 .09 .01

Grades..................................................

.32*** .10 .18 .03School effort ...................................... .06 .00 -.02 .00"Worst of three"

................................ 14 .02 .13 .02Child's report of parent-child conflict:Depression ......................................... .02 .00 .02 .00School deviance

...................................13 .01 -.05 .00

Substance use .................................... .23* .05 .03 .00Antisocial behavior ........................... .25** .05 .12 .01Grades

...................................................16+ .03 .19+ .04

School effort ...................................... .28** .08 .27* .07"Worst of three"

..................................22* .05 .12 .01

Child's report of caught in the middlebetween parents:Depression ......................................... -.05 .00 - .06 .00

School deviance ................................. -.03 .00 -.04 .00Substance use ................................... 15+ .02 .00 .00Antisocial behavior ........................... .20* .04 .15 .02Grades

...................................................19+ .04 .20* .04

School effort ...................................... -.03 .00 -.05 .00"Worst of three" ............................... -.07 .00 -.02 .00

+ p .10. ** p .01. **** p .0001.* p .05. *** p - .001.

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Monahan et al. 163

tial arrangement. Nonetheless, the effectscontinued to operate in the same direction-larger differences in perceptions of familyprocesses were associated with larger differ-

ences in adjustment. For example, in thewhole sample, differences in average par-ent-child conflict were significantly asso-ciated with substance use, antisocial behav-ior, grades, school effort, and "worst ofthree"; in the subsample of siblings who hadalways shared a residential arrangement,however, only associations with differencesin grades and differences in school effort re-mained significantly associated with differ-ences in conflict. The decrease in the magni-tude and significance of the correlations

reflected not only a decrease in the samplesize but also the fact that the whole samplehad a larger range of differences in percep-tions of environmental influences than didthe subsample.

Overall, differences in household orga-nization and differences in parent-child con-flict seemed to be the most powerful pre-dictors of differences in sibling adjustment.Nonetheless, differences in other family pro-cesses also proved important; differences inthe

perceptionsof each

family processwere

related to differences in reports of at leastone adjustment measure.

Even though sibling differences in pro-cesses were correlated with differences inadjustment, the two differences might not"match" in a meaningful way. Conceivably,for example, when siblings differ on howmuch conflict with a parent they report, itmight be the sibling who reports the mostconflict who is better adjusted on outcomemeasures. In order to make sure that the dif-

ference scores were related in a meaning-ful way, we examined the mean levels ofthe adjustment variables for the sibling ineach pair who was higher on a process vari-

able and the sibling who was lower. Wefound that sibling differences in environmen-tal influences were meaningfully relatedto the differences in adjustment; siblingswith higher scores in parental involvement,household organization, parental monitor-ing, and closeness to parents and lowerscores in average parent-child conflict andfeelings of being caught between parentshad better adjustment than their worse-scoring siblings (data not shown).

Predictorsof

Nonshared EnvironmentsSiblings who are different from one an-

other in adjustment or personality variablesrelated to adjustment may be more likely tolive apart. Several preexisting factors mayaccount for differences in residence. Sib-lings who differ in temperament may endup living apart. Because older children aremore likely to make their own residence de-cisions and to shift residences to avoid con-flict with a parent (Maccoby & Mnookin, inpress), the age of the older child and the age

differencebetween

siblings maybe associ-

ated with differences in residence. Sex dif-ference may be an important factor pre-dicting split residence; mixed-sex pairs maybe more likely to live apart than same-sexpairs. Parents' hostility toward each othermay also be associated with differences inresidence: higher levels of parental hostilitymay divide the loyalties of siblings and re-sult in split-residence decisions.

Table 6 summarizes the associations be-tween the preexisting factors and shared

TABLE 6

PREDICTORS OF SHARED TIME AND SPLIT RESIDENCE AT T4

Zero-Order Zero-OrderCorrelation with Correlation with

Predictor Shared Time (N) Split Residence (N)

Child irritability (T1) ........... -.11 (98) .01 (98)Age difference ...................... -.28** (133) -.23* (133)Age of older sibling ............. -.22** (133) .17* (133)Age of younger sibling ........ .00 (133) .00 (133)M xed sex

................................02 (133) .04 (133)

Father hostility (T1)............. -.21+ (72) .20+ (72)Mother hostility (T1) ............ .05 (86) -.03 (86)

+ p- s.10.* p .05.** p - .01.*** p .001.**** p .0001.

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time and split residence at T4. The resultsare reported as Pearson correlation coeffi-cients. Shared time and split residence at T4were related to age difference and age of the

older sibling (p - .01). The older the eldersibling was, the less time siblings spent in ashared residence and the more likely sib-lings were to be split at T4. Similarly, thegreater the age difference, the less time sib-lings spent in the same residence and themore likely the pair was to be split at T4.Given that we removed the effects of agefrom our difference scores, the fact that olderchildren were more likely to be in split-residence arrangements, and to have sharedless time with a sibling, cannot explain the

greater differences that were found in sib-ling pairs after age effects were controlled.Because split residence at T4 was a dichoto-mous variable, we also performed logistic re-gressions predicting split residence at T4with child irritability, age difference, age ofthe older child, age of the younger child,mother's hostility, and father's hostility; theresults of these analyses were consistentwith the Pearson correlations. We performeda contingency table analysis of split resi-dence at T4 by sex grouping, with similarlyconsistent results.

Although we had very little longitudinalinformation on the psychological adjustmentof the children in our study, we did haveparents' reports of child irritability at T1. Wefound that neither split residence at T4 norshared time was predicted by differences inchild irritability at T1. A higher initial levelof father hostility toward mother was weaklyassociated with less time in a shared resi-dence and a greater likelihood of a siblingpair being split at T4. When we predicteddifferences in sibling adjustment with amultiple regression model including sharedtime and father's hostility, however, the ef-fects of shared time increased while the ef-fects of father hostility disappeared. Higherinitial father hostility toward mother was,therefore, not a direct cause of the greaterdifferences in adjustment among split-res-idence siblings. Instead, the level of hostil-ity was indirectly related, through sharedtime, to differences in adjustment. The

R2for sibling differences in some of the ad-justment measures increased substantiallywhen level of father's hostility was added tothe shared-time model (e.g., R2 of substanceuse from .12 to .30, antisocial behavior from.06 to .22, and "worst of three" from .01 to.07). Although we suspected that preexistingfactors might also predict differences in

home environment, we found no evidencesupporting the claim that background factorsor early differences in child temperamentpredicted differences in family processes.

DiscussionThe sample of siblings from divorced

families offered an opportunity to examinethe shared and nonshared environments ofadolescents, and their relation to siblingdifferences in adjustment. Contrary to theconclusions of some past researchers (e.g.,Daniels et al., 1985; Dunn, 1983; Plomin &Daniels, 1987; Rowe & Plomin, 1981; Scarr& Grajek, 1982), we found that a shared en-

vironment was a major source of similaritiesamong siblings: siblings who lived apartafter their parents' divorce were more differ-ent than pairs who lived together. Siblingswho were living apart when we interviewedthem reported larger differences in house-hold organization, closeness to the nonresi-dential parent, parent-child conflict, sub-stance use, and school effort than did thoseliving together. Likewise, parents of "split"siblings reported larger differences in thelevel of parental involvement with the two

siblings than other parents. More time in ashared residence was related to smaller dif-ferences in most of the family process andpsychosocial adjustment measures, althoughnot significantly so in the cases of feelingcaught between parents, school deviance,grades, and "worst of three."

Although sibling pairs who lived apartwere more different than pairs who livedtogether, there were also significant differ-ences between siblings who shared a resi-

dence arrangement. Paired comparisons ofsibling reports confirmed that siblings wholived together differed in their perceptionsof their home and reported different adjust-ment. Thus, we conclude that nonshared en-vironments within the same home do exist,as has been claimed (Daniels et al., 1985;Dunn, 1983; Dunn & Plomin, 1990; Plomin& Daniels, 1987; Rowe & Plomin, 1981;Scarr & Grajek, 1982), but that these envi-ronments are not as different as environ-ments across households.

Not surprisingly, sibling correlationsfor family processes were somewhat higherthan those for individual adjustment. Dan-iels et al. (1985) found that intraclass siblingcorrelations of child reports of family pro-cesses ranged from .18 to .29, while the cor-relations of their reports of adjustment werelower, ranging from .12 to .20. The relatively

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Monahan et al. 165

high sibling correlations for parents' reportsof parental involvement and child irritabilitywere consistent with Daniels et al.'s findingthat parents tended to report more similar

sibling experiences than did the siblingsthemselves.

In general, differences in perceptions ofthe environment and psychosocial adjust-ment were not related to sex composition ofsibling pairs nor to level of parent's educa-tion, confirming previous findings that de-mographic factors explain extremely smallamounts of the variance in difference scores(Daniels et al., 1985; Plomin & Foch, 1980;Scarr & Grajek, 1982). Daniels et al.'s (1985)

findings regardingthe association between

differences in family processes and differ-ences in adjustment were also confirmed:we found that pairs who reported more dif-ferent perceptions of family environmentsalso reported more different adjustment.Differences in perceptions of family pro-cesses-especially household organizationand parent-child conflict-were related todifferences in all of the adjustment measuresand were the strongest predictors of dif-ferences in depression, school deviance,

antisocial behavior, grades, school effort,and "worst of three." Shared time was thestrongest predictor of differences in sub-stance use.

Previous research has shown that house-hold organization, measured as a family-level variable, is associated with positive ad-justment, particularly in divorced families(see Guidibaldi et al., 1986; Hetherington,Cox, & Cox, 1976, 1978). A structured homeseems to facilitate positive academic adjust-

ment, perhaps makingit easier for a child to

concentrate on academic work by removingthe distractions of irregular schedules. Simi-larly, established routines seem to fosterpositive affective adjustment. Our resultsindicate that household organization, asreported by adolescents, is important: dif-ferences in perceptions of household organi-zation are associated with differences in ad-justment.

Why were differences in household or-ganization especially strong in predictingdifferences in adjustment? We found itsomewhat puzzling that siblings differed asmuch as they did in their reports of house-hold organization in the same home. Of thefamily process measures, household organi-zation seemed to capture aspects of thehousehold that should be most consistentacross children. Our results indicate, how-

ever, that perceptions of household organi-zation are, to a large extent, child-driven.Perhaps reports of household organizationvary depending on a sibling's awareness of

or involvement in routines. For example, achild who is highly engaged in the homeand a child who is involved in a lot of activi-ties outside the home may have differentlevels of awareness of any household rou-tines that do exist. Even if routines are ob-jectively the same for each sibling, adoles-cents who have different expectations orhopes for their home life may perceive agiven set of routines in different ways.Household organization may be a proxy forthe extent to which the adolescent's expecta-tions of the home are being met. It wouldnot be surprising to find that siblings whodiffer in their satisfaction with the house-hold also differ in their adjustment. Al-though previous research has found that par-ent-child relationships mediate adjustmentin both divorced and intact families (seeAstone & McLanahan, 1991; Crouter, Mac-Dermid, McHale, & Perry-Jenkins, 1990;Hess & Camara, 1979; Hetherington et al.,1978), the results of the present study ofsibling differences indicate that adolescentperceptions of the coherence of the gen-eral home environment may be equally im-portant.

Differences between siblings in parent-child conflict were also associated with dif-ferences in several measures of adjustment.The relation between parent-child conflictand all of the adjustment measures exceptfor depression and school deviance indicatesan association among externalizing prob-lems. Because all of the adjustment and

family process measures (except parentalinvolvement at T3) were reported in the T4interview wave, we could not determine thecausal order of the relations between differ-ences in family processes and differences insibling adjustment. Thus, adolescents whoare involved in a great deal of overt conflictwith their parents may react by acting outbehaviorally in other contexts. Conversely,adolescents engaged in deviant behaviorand who are performing poorly in schoolmay experience more conflict with their par-ents over their behavior.

Based on theoretical considerations andprevious research, we suggested that bothwithin-household, nonshared environments(e.g., differences in perceptions of fam-ily processes) and same-family, between-household environmental influences (e.g.,split residence, shared time) may result in

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differences in adjustment. Our results sup-port the importance of both in that split resi-dence, amount of shared time, and greaterdifferences in family processes were all

associated with greater differences in ad-justment.

We found that siblings who spent moretime apart after divorce differed more intheir experiences of family processes and intheir reports of adjustment. Were these rela-tions an artifact of initial selection? Do sib-lings who are initially most different spendless time in the same household? We exam-ined the alternative hypothesis that differ-ences in adjustment or personality lead tosplit residence. Our findings indicated thatearly differences in child irritability werenot associated with the occurrence of splitresidence at T4 or the amount of shared timeover the 41/2 years following parental separa-tion. Although initial level of father hostilitywas associated with siblings spending moretime apart, father hostility did not explainsibling differences in adjustment. In fact,when the level of initial father hostility wascontrolled, the effects of nonshared timeincreased. We also found that backgroundfactors and

earlychild

differencesdid

notpredict differences in family processes. Al-though our tests were limited, we did notfind much support for the claim that earlysibling differences lead to residence differ-ences or differences in experiences withinthe same home.

Our information on the amount of resi-dential time siblings had spent together waslargely based on prior parental reports ob-tained at several successive time points fol-lowing the parents' separation. Therefore,the relation between shared time and siblingsimilarities cannot be attributed to same-source bias. However, because the dataon family processes and adjustment werelargely gathered from a single source-ado-lescents-at a single time period, the find-ings on the relation between differences inprocesses and differences in adjustment mayhave a common response bias. Given thissituation, what information do we have con-cerning the validity of the adolescent-reported measures? The little informationwe do have indicates that the measures arereasonably valid. In those cases where wehave some earlier parental indicator of anadolescent-reported construct, correlationsbetween T4 adolescent measures and earlierparental reports of treatment and adolescentadjustment were statistically significant andin the direction expected. The residential

parent's T3 report of parent-child closenesscorrelated .32 with the adolescent's reportof closeness at T4. Similarly, adolescent re-ports of parental monitoring were correlated

with a T3 item asking parents about how dif-ficult it was to keep track of their child (r =-.30) as well as with a composite of moni-toring items asked of the residential parentat T3 (r = -.22). The residential parent'sT3 report of the adolescent's school progresswas correlated with the adolescent's T4 re-ports of grades (r = .44) and school effort (r= .33). The fact that we also found relationsbetween differences in family processes anddifferences in adjustment when process isreported by parents (e.g., parental involve-

ment) and adjustment is reported by adoles-cents gives us further confidence in our re-sults. Nonetheless, the relations reportedbased on a single source are likely to besomewhat inflated. Data gathered by multi-ple or independent observers would help toremedy this problem. Multiple observers(e.g., both parents' and children's perspec-tives) would increase confidence in the va-lidity of the measures, while independentobservers would provide objective informa-tion about adolescent experiences, enablingresearchers to address the question of whichis more important in differentiating siblings-objectively measured differences in theenvironment, or differences as perceived bythe actors.

This research addressed the question ofwhether differences in sibling and parentreports of environmental factors predict dif-ferences in sibling reports of adjustment.We asked adolescents to report their expe-riences of family processes and their per-ceptions of their adjustment, and from thosereports we constructed scores to representthe differences between siblings. Other ap-proaches to the study of sibling differencesare to be encouraged, but it should be recog-nized that they may address slightly differ-ent questions. For example, an adolescentmay be asked to directly compare his or herexperiences with those of a sibling (e.g.,Daniels & Plomin, 1985). Siblings who re-port that they are treated more differently bytheir parents

mayalso differ more in

adjust-ment; the relation that this methodologywould demonstrate, however, is that chil-dren's perceptions of differential parentaltreatment are related to differences in ad-justment-not, as we found, that differencesbetween two children's perceptions of a par-ticular environmental factor are related todifferences in adjustment.

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Monahan et al. 167

In sum, while siblings differed from oneanother in all family situations, it was not thecase that siblings in different homes were assimilar as siblings in the same home. The

findingthat

siblingswho

lived apart after di-vorce were more different than siblings wholived together, even though they came fromthe same nuclear family, should encourageresearchers to reconsider the importance ofshared environment and to focus on the ef-fects of both shared and nonshared environ-ments.

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