READING PASSAGE 3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27–40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.

All in the family

A person’s brothers and sisters can have a powerful effect on their adult behaviour

We can choose our friends, the saying goes, but we cannot choose our family of origin. Our parents provide the genetic material and make powerful early role models, but even more influential in determining what kind of adult we will become are our brothers and sisters — our siblings. They occupy a position of unique intimacy in our lives and cast a longer shadow than many recognise or are prepared to acknowledge. By turns, enraging and lovable, familiar and mysterious, our brothers and sisters are the human beings who people our first social relationships. And a sibling relationship is the most enduring relationship many of us will ever have — no less emotionally intense than the bonds we form with our spouses and our own children — if only because they started when we were so young.

Surprising new research by Dr Gene Brody found that having older children who do well in school and are well liked by other children leads to parental ‘basking’ — increasing mothers’ self-esteem. It is clear that in turn this is associated with more positive parenting of younger children, who display fewer behavioural problems as a result. Conversely, parents who get a difficult first child may in turn experience a negative spiral of household tension.

International sports star Piri Weepu is a rugby hard man, but at least some of his tough temperament was forged long ago in the family home. His older brother Billy started rugby — tackling little Piri when he was just four — to ‘harden him up’. It seemed to work. Piri followed his brother in playing for the under-sevens league before he even started school. There are as many such stories as there are families: in the formative hothouse of the family, siblings interact in complex ways with the powerful forcefields of parents, genetics and personality already at work. It starts with birth order, which determines play roles: the firstborn leader, the middle-child mediator and the rebellious youngest. These are roles that can stick for life.

Clinical psychologist Claire Cartwright says she has clients who believe, and it might not have been true, that they were treated differently from their siblings, that one child in the family was preferred over others. They are quite convinced that the parental judgements on them all those years ago were harsher, and that they were the ones who always got into trouble. Later, in the workplace, such a person might be particularly defensive, and so behave in a way more prone to attracting harsh judgements.

However, the research shows that being Mummy or Daddy’s favourite has its own traps. If you were the easy-going, co-operative child at home, you probably excelled at pleasing parents and, later, bosses. But you might, as an adult, find it hard to be assertive with authority figures and lack direction. On the other hand, the sibling who is disruptive and annoying as a child may be able to reinterpret that role later, turning those attention-seeking characteristics into strengths like determination and leadership.

How is it that full siblings, despite sharing DNA, can turn out so differently? One answer is that, in fact, each sibling grows up in a different family, a unique micro-culture. For example, the firstborn is, for a while, an only child, and therefore has a completely different experience of the parents than those born later. The parents themselves are growing up too, weathering hardship or good fortune, so one sibling might experience stability and closeness while another might be raised in the midst of crisis.

Of course, there are many positive aspects of sibling relationships. Annette Henderson, a lecturer in psychology, says firstborn children learn vocabulary more quickly than their siblings because they are not competing to spend one-on-one time with parents. But younger children in turn benefit from unintentional instruction from their bigger brothers and sisters, acquiring entire phrases and an understanding of social concepts such as politeness. Similarly, a Cambridge University study of 140 children found that even when there is a great deal of conflict, siblings will still create a rich world of play and make-believe that extends them developmentally. Love-hate relationships were common among the children, but even those who fought the most had as many positive interactions as the other sibling pairs. It is also true that children compete for parental attention by making themselves different from their brothers and sisters, particularly if they are close in age. A 2003 research paper studied adolescents from 185 families over two years, finding that those who changed to differentiate themselves from their siblings increased the amount of warmth they gained from parents, and also developed stronger personalities and a better sense of their own identity.

Another consideration is that many families today are smaller and more intimate than their historical counterparts. This may be advantageous because siblings tend to know each other better and remain lifelong friends compared to children from bigger or more widely spaced families, who perhaps lose touch with one another after leaving home. Then there was a 2010 American study which found that having a sister, whether younger or older, meant that 10- to 14-year-olds were less likely to feel lonely, unloved, self-conscious or fearful. The same study found that having a loving sibling of either gender promoted good deeds, such as helping a neighbour around the house or helping other children at school.

Questions 27-30

YES / NO / NOT GIVEN

27 Parents and siblings play equal roles in shaping people’s adult personalities.

YESNONOT GIVEN

28 People’s first social relationships tend to be with siblings of their own gender.

YESNONOT GIVEN

29 People’s relationships with their siblings tend to receive less attention when they marry.

YESNONOT GIVEN

30 Parental ‘basking’ is advantageous for later siblings.

YESNONOT GIVEN

Questions 31-34

Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.

31 What point does the writer make about birth order in the third paragraph?

A Its role is underestimated by parents. B It may shape the characteristics of adults. C Its importance decreases as children grow up. D It has more influence on personality than genetics.

32 What are we told about some of Claire Cartwright’s clients?

A Their parents treated them fairly. B They were treated harshly by their siblings. C Their perceptions of childhood may be inaccurate. D They have closer relationships with their siblings as adults.

33 What is the writer’s main point about siblings in the fifth paragraph?

A Parents tend to repeat their own parents’ mistakes. B Favoured children are likely to make good leaders as adults. C Negative characteristics in children can become positive in adults. D Attention-seeking children are unlikely to please bosses in later life.

34 Which of the following best summarises the writer’s argument in the sixth paragraph?

A Many children have a favourite parent. B Parenting skills improve with later children. C Siblings are born with different personalities. D The family environment may change over time.