Support substitution and provision of sibling support: the role of obligation and resentment on student's mental health

Older children are expected to serve as support substitutes when parents are not able to adequately provide the support needed to their younger siblings. This exchange of resources may influence the individual who is serving as a substitute to experience feelings of obligation and resentment that can ultimately lead to mental health symptoms. The term mental health is broadly conceptualized in this thesis as negative affect and positive affect. Online surveys were conducted on a sample of 170 Arizona State University students to analyze whether the provision of sibling support was related to worse affect. Hypotheses included: 1) provision of support from the student to the sibling will be related to lower positive and higher negative affect, 2) sibling support provision will be related to greater feelings of obligation and resentment, 3) obligation and resentment will mediate the relationship between sibling support provision and affect and 4) gender differences exist in the mediational relationship of sibling support provision, obligation/resentment, and affect. Results showed that sibling support provision is related to higher levels of both negative and positive affect. Moreover, provision of sibling support was significantly related to feelings of obligation and resentment. There was also some evidence for a mediational model, such that there was an indirect effect of sibling support provision on negative and positive affect through feelings of obligation, but not resentment. Lastly, females experienced significantly greater feelings of obligation to provide support, while males experienced significantly greater feelings of resentment. However, there was no evidence of a moderated mediation by gender. These results suggest that sibling support provision is related to affect and one potential explanation is the feelings of obligation engendered by the sibling support provision.