Comparative analysis of everyday and scientific concepts of sibling relationships in the family

Abstract

The article compares the concepts of everyday (“folk developmental psychology”) and scientific psychology about the particularities of sibling relationships in the family. The article provides a brief overview of «folk developmental psychology» and major research of sibling relationships in professional psychology. It describes cases of practical work with the parents' requests to a psychologist connected with emotional and behavioral difficulties their older children have after the appearance of younger ones. These descriptions reflect the most typical trends of the parents, as representatives of everyday psychology, in their understanding and emotional experience of the relationship of brothers and sisters, as well as appearing strategies of parental behavior in the regulation of sibling conflicts.

Keywords

• concepts of everyday (“folk developmental psychology”) and scientific psychology
• sibling system
• sibling conflicts
• strategies of parental behavior in the regulation of sibling relationships