Relationship of number of siblings, family type and index of self-esteem in UNL students

Abigail Cheesman | University of Nebraska-Lincoln

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Discussion

This study aimed to discover if there was a relationship between family type, self-esteem, number of siblings and how serious individuals would rate there current or most current relationship and how many times an individual moved as a child. This study did find significant three way interactions for both the relationship between family type, self-esteem, number of siblings and seriousness of most current or current relationship and the number of times moved as a child with these three variables.

For the first hypothesis, there was partial support. In support of the research hypothesis, individuals with two siblings or less, two parent family type, and low to medium self-esteem had an increase their rating of their current or most current relationship seriousness. However, contrary to the research hypothesis there was no difference in the rating of seriousness of a relationship for individuals with two siblings or less, two parent family type, and low to high self-esteem as well as medium to high self-esteem. Also contrary to the hypothesis there was no difference in the rating of seriousness of a relationship for individuals with three siblings or more, the other family type, and all levels of self-esteem.

For the second hypothesis, there was partial support for the research hypothesis. In partial support of the research hypothesis, those with two siblings or less and the other family type moved more as children when compared with low to high self-esteem and medium to high self-esteem. Contrary to the research hypothesis, people who have two parent family types and two sibling or less had no difference in the number of times they moved as a child when compared to all levels of self-esteem and for individuals with two siblings or less and the other family type they had no difference in the number of times moved when compared to medium self-esteem to high self-esteem. Also contrary to the research hypothesis, individuals who had 3 siblings or more had no difference in the number of times they moved as a child when compared to both family types and the levels of self-esteem.

In accordance to previous research, there was a main effect for family type found when looking at the dependent variable of number of times moved as a child. Astone and Mclanahan found that children from two-parent families moved significantly less than those children from other families which is what this study found as well. However, contrary to research done on the effects of family type and self-esteem, neither of these had significant effects on the rating of seriousness of an individual’s current or most current relationship.

For future studies, researchers could look more in depth into sibling relationships. While there were no significant effects found in this study, the effect of sibling relationships has found to have a unique effect on relationships. One way to do this is to study more on how number of sibling’s effects variables. Research before this has focused on sibling relationships but not necessarily the number that one has. This could be applicable to both dependent variables as further research into the number of sibling relationships could have a relationship to both the individuals rating of the seriousness of their current or most current relationship as well as the number of times one moves as a child.