Development Psychology seeks to describe and understand how the mind changes over the human lifecycle. However, much of the early work done in this field concentrated on understanding how that change took place in early life. Perhaps this makes a lot of sense when you consider the vast amount of change that takes place from birth to the onset of adulthood as compared to adulthood itself. That said, some might argue (Kohlberg) that certain stages of development (moral) will never be reached by the majority of human beings.

There are numerous factors which might shape the way a child’s mind develops through childhood. One such factor might include having brothers and sisters around as development takes place as compared to being an only child.

Piaget devised a theory that classified stages of child development. These stages attempt to explain the processes that take place before hypothetical and abstract reasoning develops in a child, usually at adolescence. You might argue therefore that having brothers or sisters around will have little impact on a child’s development because the ability to empathise and consider the thoughts of others does not take place during this time. However, Piaget concentrated on cognitive reasoning and did little to consider the impact of cultural or social environmental factors. From a purely cognitive stance it could be that child development is impeded by not having brothers and sisters around simply because of a lack of stimuli. More stimuli could encourage or foster cognition at a faster rate. After all one of the criticisms of Piaget’s theory was that his stages of development were too rigid.

Having brothers and sisters around as a child seems to fit well with the idea of social influence. After all, siblings spend vast amounts of time together and it therefore might be reasonable to assume that this could impact on their development. Some theorists including (Harlow) would argue that the forming of strong bonds at an early age have an impact on how an adult might form relationships later on in life. (Although much of Harlow’s work centred around a child’s main carer and not brothers and sisters.) This type of later in life adaptation could be more prevalent in situations where a child has a large number of brothers and sisters or perhaps compounded by cultural influences where strong family unity is encouraged.

A child’s perception of what is right and wrong from a moral perspective may or may not be impacted by having brothers or sisters around. Piaget would argue that such reasoning is not acquired until late in a child’s development, perhaps at the final stages where brothers have less impact than other individuals such as teachers or role models. Others, (Kohlberg), might say that some levels of moral development such as acting in the best interests of the greater good do not take place for most individuals at all. If so the having brothers and sisters around won’t make any difference at all. A good example however, of where a child is able to make the distinction between right from wrong even when an adult is advocating that the child do the wrong thing is as follows:

A young child may instinctively choose not to hit another person or cause pain to somebody or someone else even if their primary career instructs them to do so.

Perhaps therefore, moral development is not development at all but simply an innate quantity that exists in all human beings. If moral development can be attained during childhood, it is reasonable to assume that such an understanding could be influenced by the various interactions with brothers and sisters. It is interesting to note however that most siblings at an early age fight like cats and dogs!!