In a study done about the relationship between siblings, it describes how certain ages affect what kind of competitions the siblings will face and they way they interact. From mine own reading of it, I can really see how me and my 15 year old brother have interacted from the time we were born. In the early times of our live everything we could do was a fight between who was stronger, faster, bigger and taller. These were the main things we competed against eachother with. After that, into our beginning of teen years everything changed to who was smarter and had better grades. This is where my parents would get involved and tell us that we were both equal and that we could do the same things with equal skill. Where we are now, I'm 18 and he is 15, everything with us is more on the social side of things. Who can have the most friends, be popular, that sort of thing. It even comes down to who has the all the girls, or who has the better girl.

Sibling Rivalry: studying the relationships between siblings

This topic submitted by Anne Marie McNerney, Joy Marie Usner (usnerjm@muohio.edu) at 10:32 pm on 2/27/01. Additions were last made on Wednesday, February 28, 2001. Section: Myers.

We hypothesize that the relationships between siblings as reported by students here at Miami will reveal that siblings will be more competitive at specific ages in specific areas. We hypothesize that students will report the highest rate of competition in the category of physical at the earlier stages of life, such as age 1 to 10. We believe competition will be reported as being the highest in the category of academics from the ages of about 10 to 15. From the ages of 15 to 20, we believe siblings will report the highest level of competition in the category of social.
This research is interesting because we are both siblings ourselves!!!! Altruistic behavior affects us all, be it if we are stranded on the side of the road with a busted tire, or in a pinch to finish a paper with no ink cartridge. It will be really interesting to see if people are predisposed to kindness, and how different sexes respond to people in need. We also are interested in how our own family structure and our birth order will affect how we treat other people. We will learn more about how the rivalry we experience with our own siblings affects our life experiences, and how we respond to our own and other’s experience. Other scientists have looked at other species to gain some sort of understanding about sibling relationships. Hyenas and boobies have been observed at length to learn more about siblicide and extreme cases of sibling rivalry. There has been a lot of research done on birds. Birds will often kill a sibling so that they can have a greater share of the resources (food). In humans similar rivalry over resources has developed. Humans often fight ovcr the attention of parents, toys, space in shared rooms, etc. The theories on Darwin, Trivers and Hamilton have been applied to these situations. Altruism is evident in situations beyond the nuclear family. International relationships are often based on altruism. The length of time a country has been established could be compared to birth order. Countries compete for resources, choose allies, and fight over territories. If we look at the world as a global village due to the ease with which nations interact similar to the way in which siblings interact. For our experiment we have designed a survey to show the stages in which siblings are most competitive in various areas.





My family means so much to me. We do so many fun things together. The past few months my mom has been studying feverishly for his tests and classes that she has been taking at BYU in order to become licensed teach Kindergarten. Literally every moment of her day is spent studying, writing, and taking tests for all her classes. With her so busy it left me and my brothers basically with no mother. This meant no organized dinner for any of us. Now with 4 boys... We need food. When there isn't any, we get very grumpy, especially Bridger. He has the metabolism of an elephant. He will be up in our kitchen at midnight eating anything he can find. So since my mom has been so busy, my dad has had to be our mommy for a while. We've really all been spending a lot of time together going to dinner and movies. Its been nice for my mom because we've been staying out of the house so she can study.

My little brother Logan has a crazy obsession. He is 9 years old and he is in love with Lego's. He literally has hundreds of dollars worth of Lego's in his room. Every desk, table, dresser is strewn about with the multi colored pieces. Any time he gets money from someone, he saves it up till he has enough to by the next Lego set that he has on his list. From time to time He'll need help building all these Lego sets, and that's where I come in. I used to share the same passion that he has for them. Lego's were my thing. He'll ask for my help and I'll gladly go sit down with him and spend 45 minutes creating this amazing/elaborate piece. From there he finds a new place on a desk or dresser to display his "Work of Art". His Lego sets are very diversified. They range from Star Wars Lego's all the way to Dinosaurs and Harry Potter. He has so many different themes of Lego's in his room. I love watching when he brings his friends over to show him what amazing thing he has built this time. They "oooh" and "ahhh" at his sets. I'm glad that I'm able to help him in making some of these becasue it is great bonding time for us that I know I'm never going to forget.

Logan loves climbing trees and one day he was up in one so I told him to smile while I sapped a shot.

Me and my brothers love doing things together. One of the biggest is playing basketball together. Basketball is kinda the main sport for our family. My dad played it in high school, and my brother who is in 9th grade and 6' 3" has been playing it for the past couple of years. He is really hoping to make the sophomore team next year. A couple months ago Bridger injured his ankle at one of his basketball practices for his 9th grade team. We had to take him to the hospital and the verdict was a broken ankle. It was swollen up and black and blue for days after that. He stayed in bed for about a week trying to rest it up and after that he was on crutches for about 2 months. This really set him back in the world of basketball. Not practicing, training exercise, or improving his skills for 2 months really hurt him emotionally and physically. The past month he has been able to get back into the rhythm of basketball and he is loving it. I've been taking him over to our church gym a couple nights a week and helping him get his skills back up to speed. We've been shooting free throws and doing drills for hours a day. My dad will even come over with us when he isn't busy to help Bridger out in anyway possible. I love spending time with him and helping him in anyway that I can. He is one of my best friends.

In this picture, we were doing some cool halo tricks with a flash light.

Brothers brothers brothers... What can you say about them? They are always in your business and trying to see what you are doing at all times, especially when you are the oldest. I have this certain problem that I have to deal with frequently with one of them. My brother Jaxson, 12, loves taking my things and hiding them in his room. The other day he took one of my brand new, expensive bottles of cologne. His reasoning behind this was that I had a lot of cologne and he didn't. Upon finding that my cologne was missing, I instantly knew that he was the culprit because earlier that day he had been complaining to my mom about the issue. After a long heated argument/fight that lasted for about an hour. He reluctantly went and got my cologne and returned it to me. He apologized and the issue was resolved. Now these type of events happen so often at my house. We've just learned to try and deal with problems in the easiest way possible. All I can really say is try to stay on good terms with your family and sibling. They should be your best friends so treat them like it and in return they will do the same.

This is a picture of when he was helping me out with one of my photgraphy assignments.