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Sibling’s Perceived Parental Favoritism and Self-esteem: Rejection Sensitivity as a Mediator

  • THE KOREAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
  • 2018, 31(1), pp.91-110
  • DOI : 10.35574/KJDP.2018.03.31.1.91
  • Publisher : The Korean Society For Developmental Psychology
  • Research Area : Social Science > Psychological Science
  • Received : January 15, 2018
  • Accepted : March 5, 2018

Kyoung Ok Seol 1 Juna Kim 1

1이화여자대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we conceptualized parental favoritism in the shared environment of siblings. We hypothesized that siblings’ self-esteem would be negatively associated with their perceived parental favoritism regardless of the directions of favoritism. Furthermore, we hypothesized that rejection sensitivity would mediate the relationship between perceived parental favoritism and siblings’ self-esteem. A total of 169 siblings participated in this study. We ran correlational analyses among relative scores and absolute scores of parental favoritism, self-esteem, and rejection sensitivity. We also performed a paired t test between the “favored group” and the “non-favored group”. We found that absolute scores of parental favoritism were significantly associated with siblings’ self-esteem and rejection sensitivity. However, relative scores of parental favoritism were not. In other words, both siblings showed lower self-esteem and higher rejection sensitivity when they perceived more parental favoritism regardless of the directions of favoritism within the family. There were no significant differences between the favored group and the non-favored group in terms of self-esteem and rejection sensitivity. The final mediation analysis revealed that rejection sensitivity mediated the relationship between absolute scores of parental favoritism and siblings’ self-esteem. We discuss implications of parental favoritism in the shared environment of siblings on their psycho-social development.

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