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The qualitative study explored parents perceptions and attributions of personality differences among their children. Twelve parents were interviewed using Interpretative Phenomenological Approach. The analysis revealed that the parents attributed the siblings' personality differences to a combination of biological vs. psychosocial factors. It revealed meaningful insights as reflected by the themes that revolved around nature vs. nurture, psychosocial influences, parental identification and role modeling, gender, birth order and role expectations. Interestingly, despite sharing the same genetics, living in similar environmental conditions, children tend to display diversity in their behaviors and overall personality. Parents sometimes describe their children as opposite as 'day and night' which raises a question to investigate the factors that cause such extreme diversity in their personalities. There is a need to further explore parental expectations and criteria for an ideal child as well as knowing about the relative contribution of nature vs. nurture factors in determining personality differences.
Keywords. Perception of parents, attributions, children's personality, siblings
Parent child relationship has been explored involving a variety of dimensions. There is considerable research, analysing the meaning of parents' perceptions of child characteristics, particularly in the area of temperament. This study aimed to qualitatively explore parent's understandings of perceived differences in their children's personalities with reference to sibling comparisons. The parent-child relationship consists of a combination of behaviors, feelings, and expectations that are unique to a particular parent and a particular child (Willson, Shuey, Elder, & Wickrama, 2006). The relationship involves the full extent of a child's development. The quality of the parent-child relationship is influenced by a multitude of factors, including; parent's age, experience, education, self-confidence, stability of the parents' marriage, beliefs and perceptions that determine their parenting styles as well as the unique characteristics of the child compared with those of the parent (Plomin & Daniels, 2011). Therefore, it is important to understand the dynamics underlying parental perceptions of their children's personality, the level of understanding and insight into their interests, abilities and behavior patterns (Birditt, Miller, Fingerman, & Lefkowitz, 2009).
Parents are well aware of the behavioral differences between their children. This is particularly true for dimensions of temperament. When asked about their children's temperaments, parents frequently remark about extreme personality differences in their children as they come from different families....