Children's Accounts of Sibling Jealousy and Their Implicit Theories about Relationships

In two studies, fifth- and sixth-grade children's descriptive accounts of sibling jealousy were related to their implicit theories about relationships. Children's jealousy accounts were collected via structured interviews; their implicit theories were assessed by questionnaire. In both studies, children reported experiencing mild to moderate jealousy with diverted attention and favoritism as primary causes. In Study 1 (N = 63; M age = 11 years, 9 months), children who endorsed malleable (incremental) theories about relationships reported longer and more intense jealousy than children who reported fixed (entity) theories about relationships. Findings from Study 2 (N = 42; M age = 10 years, 9 months) replicated Study 1 and additionally demonstrated that malleable theorists' time being jealous was spent generating more mastery-oriented ways to deal with the situation as compared to fixed theorists.