“Two for Flinching”: Children’s and Adolescents’ Narrative Accounts of Harming Their Friends and Siblings

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“Two for Flinching”: Children’s and Adolescents’ Narrative Accounts of Harming Their Friends and Siblings

Holly Recchia Concordia University

Cecilia Wainryb and Monisha Pasupathi University of Utah

This study investigated differences in children’s and adolescents’ experiences of harming their siblings and friends. Participants (N = 101; 7-, 11-, and 16-year-olds) provided accounts of events when they hurt a youn- ger sibling and a friend. Harm against friends was described as unusual, unforeseeable, and circumstantial. By contrast, harm against siblings was described as typical, ruthless, angry, and provoked, but also elicited more negative moral judgments and more feelings of remorse and regret. Whereas younger children were more self-oriented with siblings and other-oriented with friends, accounts of harm across relationships became somewhat more similar with age. Results provide insight into how these two relationships serve as distinct contexts for sociomoral development.

It has long been recognized that children’s close relationships with other children are fundamental contexts for their moral development (Piaget, 1932; Sullivan, 1953). Through their shared histories with familiar others, children learn about moral concepts such as rights, justice, benevolence, reciprocity, and trust (Bukowski & Sippola, 1996; Damon, 1977). Conflicts with peers may provide key opportunities for reflecting on these moral lessons, as children strive to find ways to balance concerns with their own desires and perspectives with their recognition of others’ divergent needs and understandings (Pasupathi & Wainryb, 2010a; Wainryb, Brehl, & Matwin, 2005). Yet we contend that children’s close relationships with different types of agemates may provide distinct opportunities for struggling with such issues. Indeed, it has been proposed that chil- dren demonstrate a particular moral concern for their friends (Youniss & Smollar, 1985). In contrast, less attention has been paid to children’s sibling relationships as contexts for moral development. Perhaps this is not surprising: Anecdotal descrip- tions of children’s sibling relationships as character-Article Summary1

ized by a “devastating lack of inhibition” (Dunn, 1984) or as “emotionally charged with murderous tension” (Bank & Kahn, 1982) imply that sibling interactions may not be an ideal training ground for morally upstanding behavior.

Nevertheless, we propose that everyday experi- ences of conflict with both friends and siblings may serve as contexts for moral development, albeit in different ways. Due to the unique and evolving provisions of children’s relationships with friends and siblings, we argue that opportunities for moral development implicated in the perpetration of harm against these two partners are likely to be different, and also to change with age. Therefore, the goal of this study was to examine the features of 7- to 16- year-olds’ narrative accounts of harming their friends and siblings, and thus to provide a window into the unique ways in which children and adoles- cents make sense of their distinct experiences of harm in particular close relationships.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.
Making Sense of Hurting or Upsetting Others

Being a moral person is typically equated with engaging in good deeds and refraining from hurting others. Yet in the course of their enduring relation- ships—even those with cherished playmates—chil- dren will inevitably act in ways that hurt or upset their peers, as their motivations and cognitions come

This research was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to the first author. We would like to thank the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City and the Murray City School District for their assistance with recruitment, Jessica Robinson for her help with coding the data, and especially the participating children and adolescents, without whom this study would not have been pos- sible. Portions of this study were presented at the meeting of the Jean Piaget Society (2011).

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