Sibling Relationships Research: A Narrative Review
Abstract
Tiffany Field
This narrative review includes brief summaries of papers on sibling relationships that were published in 2024 and 2025 and can be categorized as positive and negative effects as well as risk factors/predictor variables. In this current literature, positive effects of sibling relationships include siblings serving as role models and caregivers, fostering competence, lower cortisol levels, sibling relatedness happening again in later romantic relationships, and sibling relatedness contributing to later cognitive performance. Negative effects include bullying, sexual abuse and early puberty. Risk factors/predictor variables include hyperactivity, sibling disability, low intimacy, victimization, and parental differential treatment of the siblings. Methodological limitations of this current literature include the samples being limited to children/adolescents, the sampling of dyads that include one with a disability or a mental disorder as opposed to a healthy sibling, the lack of comparisons between siblings and only children, the selection of variables that is frequently limited to those in archival databases and the results of the data analyses on sibling conflict being confounded by parental conflict.