insecure attachment

One or three types of only-children?

One the both interesting and frustrating aspects of only child research is the conflicting data that emerges. On the one hand there are many like Polit and Falbo who believe their studies have shown little difference between children with siblings and only children, and others who say that only children have greater advantages because of so much parental attention. While others dwell on the popular stereotype of the maladapted, socially inept, lonely only. Looking at the research on only-children over several decades Rosenberg & Hyde (1993) have attempted to account for the conflicting data by suggesting only-children are not a homogeneous group. After summarising the inconsistencies in the previous research they suggest there are two opposing theoretical views: The firstĀ  view emphasises the uniqueness of onlies who are never dethroned and have all the parental attention and are advantaged. The second view states onlies suffer deprivation from lack of siblings [...]

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