What do your siblings mean to you? And how do your children experience their sibling relationships?
Siblings are often ‘fellow travellers’ through adversity or significant life events; among our longest-lasting relationships, our siblings can be a source of support as well as conflict. Professor Claire Hughes (NC 1986) shares her cutting-edge psychological research on this important relationship, looking at the impact of sibling relationships on children’s development and wellbeing.
PROFESSOR CLAIRE HUGHES teaches psychological and behavioural sciences at Newnham and the University and carries out her research at the Centre for Family Research in Cambridge. Claire’s focus is on longitudinal studies (funded principally by the ESRC) that examine the origins and consequences of individual differences in theory of mind and executive function for children’s social relationships and adjustment to primary and secondary school. Over the past decade, Claire’s work has become increasingly international, involving multi-site studies of the transition to parenthood (with collaborators in New York and the Netherlands) and cross-cultural comparisons of executive function and theory of mind, with a particular focus on East-West contrasts.