Sibling Bullying and its effect on mental well being

Introduction In recent years, bullying has gained much consideration and attention. A definition widely accepted defines it as occurring when an individual becomes subject to intentional negative behaviors by another person(s)—resulting in a power imbalance between the perpetrator and the victim (Olweus, 1991). Over the years, we have seen substantial concentration on school, peer-to-peer, and cyberbullying; yet sibling bullying often gets overlooked. This paper will consider sibling bullying, its deviation from sibling rivalry, its impact on society, and a viable intervention(s) that could bring about greater awareness. Sibling Rivalry We should not confuse sibling bullying with sibling rivalry, which is a well-documented phenomenon that stems back to biblical times with the story of Cain & Abel. Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst David Levy describe it as "jealousy of the mother's love" (Wolke et al. , 2015). It begins around the birth of a second child and is more prevalent in same-sex siblings (Leung & Robson, 1991). Although their applicability to relationships between siblings in studies is a rarity, social psychological theories are relevant to sibling relationships because social psychology explains how others can influence each other (Whiteman et al. , 2011). One such theory relative to sibling relationships is social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954), which infers that people have an intrinsic urge to assess themselves against the comparison of others. Alfred Adler theorized that feelings of inferiority could heighten a child's need to defeat those feelings. Known as inferiority complex, this could ultimately result in sibling rivalry (Whiteman et al. , 2011). Thus, the adverse effects of upward or downward comparisons, including parental favoritism, on a sibling's relationship suggests the widespread effect within family networks. With upward comparisons, there is an assumption that heightened envy is present when a person compares themselves to another perceived as better than them (Alicke & Zell, 2008). Jealousy and rivalry lead to sibling aggression (Felson, 1983), and aggression among siblings is the most common form of aggression, especially within the family home. Although there is no association to aggression in all cases, aggression often gets discarded as just an ordinary act of rivalry (Tucker & Finkelhor, 2015). With sibling rivalry accepted as normal behavior found in most families (Leung & Robson, 1991), it is no surprise that sibling aggression and bullying often get overlooked. According to researchers, low reporting from victims and parents is one of the main reasons (Plamondon et al. , 2018). Sibling Bullying We define sibling bullying as recurrent aggressiveness through emotional, verbal, or physical forms between siblings to cause hurt or dominate another (Plamondon et al. , 2018). Despite being widely perceived as harmless in families and society, it is the most prevalent type of family violence. Some components that can help us identify bullying are power imbalance, intentional actions to cause harm, and repetitive behaviors (Vivolo-Kantor et al. , 2014). These manifest into behaviors like name-calling, intimidation, threatening behavior (verbal), kicking, punching (physical), or exclusion and rumour/defaming (relational), and are all repeated acts of aggression among perpetrators (Wolke et al. , 2015). The parent's or family's failure to distinguish between sibling bullying and 'normal' sibling rivalry can often result in aggressive behaviour from one sibling to another (Kiselica & Morrill-Richards, 2007). It can also increase the possibility of the behaviour going unnoticed (Wolke et al. , 2015). As with peers, these repeated acts of aggression award bullies some form of social status or, with sibling bullying (Toseeb & Wolke, 2021), continued access to parental resources such as attention or love. This form of motivation has been a long-documented aspect of peer bullying throughout time (Wolke et al. , 2015), a factor in identifying the aggressive behaviour found among siblings as sibling bullying. Interestingly, larger families with older males are more likely to experience bullying. The older brother is most likely to be the bully. (Dantchev & Wolke, 2019). Social learning theories inform us that individuals acquire new behaviors or attitudes by way of reinforcement and observing the behaviors and attitudes of others (Bandura, 1977). In a larger family unit, this could imply that younger siblings acquire the aggressive behavior of an older sibling toward another sibling, therefore giving cause to an increase in severity (Whiteman et al. , 2011). Moreover, in other cases, aggressive behaviour between parents can too give rise to a child becoming a bully. As a whole, the phenomenon of bullying right down to cyberbullying lacks a precise definition in these times, and ambiguity surrounds the characteristics that newer types of bullying could cause. Questions remain on human judgment and the boundary between innocent teasing and bullying, with ample scope for further research. These inconsistencies in the definitional components of bullying could also explain why sibling bullying gets mistaken regularly as sibling rivalry (Chang, 2021). The sense of normalcy applied to this form of sibling aggression can undoubtedly explain why sibling bullying lacks research targetting its reduction (Tucker & Finkelhor, 2015). Impacts of Sibling Bullying Considering that sibling bullying, due to the nature of the environment victims find themselves in, can cause an individual to feel trapped, with a sense of nowhere to turn, it is no surprise that the risk of depression, self-harm, and anxiety intensifies among victims (Dantchev et al. , 2019). Like any other form of domestic abuse, it can have a long-lasting effect on individuals' mental health and well-being (Plamondon et al. , 2018) and is associated with poorer academic and social performance.