Competitiveness Resulting from Sibling Rivalry

Abstract

This is a descriptive study that basically aims to know if sibling relationship, particularly rivalry, is a cause of the competitive behavior of an individual. It intends to verify if factors such as parental relationship, gender and birth order influence and affect the kind of relationship siblings have with each other. Moreover, the study's objective is to also find out whether these mentioned factors trigger rivalry between or among siblings. The sample population of this study were the female second year standing students enrolled in the University of the Philippines Manila, AY 2010-2011. The researcher purposively distributed questionnaires and conducted informal and semistructured interviews to obtain the needed quantitative and qualitative data. A total of 65 respondents where 5 interviewees were drawn participated in this study. Findings show that parental relationship, indeed, has an effect on the kind of relationship siblings build with each other specifically because of favoritism and comparison of the children. Birth order does influence it as well; since each child is positioned differently in the family in terms of their age, one behaves dominantly over the other which usually does not produce a positive reaction from that other. The third factor, which is gender, affects the sibling relationship because siblings of the same gender are more prone to comparison which also yields a negative effect on the siblings. Thus, to conclude the study, although the results show that the respondents' level of competitiveness are not significantly high, sibling rivalry, including all the factors mentioned above, makes one think she is competitive and want to compete with other people.