The Sibling Position of Person in Parental Family and Features of His Communicative Responses to Jealousy in Romantic Relationships

This research contributes to the study of the relationship between patterns of behavior in adult romantic relationships and the context of interaction in their parental families, specifically in the sibling subsystem. This study helps to expand the understanding of the complexity of jealousy in romantic relationship and the communicative response to it by research such a factor as sibling relationships. The following methods were used for the study: the questionnaire "Communication in the family" by Alyoshina, Gozman, Dubovskaya, a modified version of this methodology to analyze sibling interaction, developed by Kravtsova, CRJ questionnaire to determine communicative responses to jealousy, developed by Guerrero and Andersen, adapted by Furmanov and Vergeichik, as well as the author's questionnaire developed to determine the actual characteristics of the sibling position. The study involved 95 respondents whose birth order were older, younger, and only children. Based on the analysis, it was concluded that there is a connection between certain characteristics of the sibling position and features of communicative reactions to jealousy in adulthood. Hypofunctional position, which includes such a characteristic as higher expectation of help from one's sibling in childhood, was found to be associated with bigger control in the situation of jealousy in romantic relationships in adulthood. An association was found between lack of conflict with one's sibling in childhood and avoidance strategies in jealousy in adulthood. Willingness to directly and openly discuss one's own feelings and problem situation with a partner when jealousy occurs in adulthood was found to be associated with an equal level of autonomy with a sibling in childhood. Additionally, it was found that there was a correlation between understanding with a sibling and psychotherapeutic communication with a partner, as well as between psychotherapeutic communication with a partner and shared symbols in sibling relationships.