Emerging Ideas: Is sibling aggression as scary as peer aggression in childhood and adolescence?

• Published date: 01 December 2023
• Author: Corinna Jenkins Tucker,David Finkelhor,Heather Turner
• Date: 01 December 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12844

BRIEF REPORT

Emerging Ideas: Is sibling aggression as scary as peer

aggression in childhood and adolescence?

Corinna Jenkins Tucker|David Finkelhor|Heather Turner

Crimes Against Children Research Center,

University of New Hampshire

Correspondence

Corinna Jenkins Tucker, Crimes Against

Children Research Center, University of New

Hampshire, 125A McConnell Hall, Durham,

NH 03824, USA.

Email: cjtucker@unh.edu

Funding information

This project was supported by grants 2006-JW-

BX-0003 and 2009-JW-BX-0018 awarded by

the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency

Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, US

Department of Justice to the second and third

authors. The total amount of federal funding

involved is $2,848,809.

Abstract

Objective: We compared the frequency of fearfulness for

sibling versus peer victimization experiences (severe and

minor physical, property, and psychological) in childhood

and adolescence.

Background: Sibling aggression is not recognized as a

childhood adversity. Yet a tenet of the family violence lit-

erature is that abuse is more fearsome when living with an

abuser.

Method: Telephone interviews were conducted with par-

entsofchildrenaged1to9 yearsandwithadolescents

10 to 17 years old living with a juvenile sibling (N=7,029;

49% female) using data from three combined surveys of

the National Survey on Children’s Exposure to Violence.

Results: Fear of sibling aggression was less common than

peer aggression. Further, sibling aggression was less fearful

than peer aggression for severe and minor physical and

property episodes. There was little variation by gender,

ethnicity, and parent education level.

Conclusions: Children and adolescents do not lack fear

from sibling aggression, but the fear is lower than for peer

aggression.

Implications: A prevalent idea in the family violence litera-

ture that living with an offender generates more fear was

not supported for sibling aggression.

KEYWORDS

adolescents, bullying, children, fear, peers, siblings, victimization

Sibling aggression is not yet recognized in the same class of childhood adversities as peer aggres-

sion. National U.S. surveys, however, show that sibling aggression is more common than peer

victimization (Finkelhor et al., 2015) and, like peer aggression, is associated with worsened

mental and physical health, including posttraumatic symptoms (Tucker, Finkelhor, Turner, &

Shattuck, 2013; Tucker & Kazura, 2013). Forms of sibling and peer abuse include physical

assault, such as hitting with or without an injury; property vandalism or appropriation; and

Received: 27 May 2022Revised: 28 October 2022Accepted: 5 January 2023

DOI: 10.1111/fare.12844

© 2023 National Council on Family Relations.

Family Relations. 2023;72:3023–3028. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/fare 3023