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Updated: Dec 20, 2025

Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure
Published on: September 19, 2019
Chinese parents' comparisons of siblings and adolescents' internalizing and externalizing problems
Bin-Bin Chen1,2,3, Yang Qu4, Xiaochen Chen2,3
1Department of Psychology, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
Abstract:
Parents' comparisons of siblings have been understudied among sibling research, especially in Chinese societies where the government recently relaxed its one-child policy. This study, using a two-wave longitudinal design, explored how parents' comparisons of siblings were associated with adolescents' internalizing and externalizing problems. Study participants were 260 Chinese adolescents who had siblings and completed questionnaires that assessed their internalizing and externalizing problems, as well as their perceptions of parents' critical comparisons of siblings. Cross-lagged modeling analysis showed that parents' comparisons of siblings predicted more internalizing and externalizing problems in adolescents 6 months later. Moreover, adolescents' externalizing problems but not internalizing problems predicted more parents' comparisons of siblings over time. These findings underscore the importance of reciprocal relations between parents' comparisons of siblings and adolescents' externalizing problems and the implication of cultural context in understanding associations between parental practices and adolescents' adjustment.
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