According to new research, adolescents who perceive their homes as more chaotic than their siblings are more likely to develop mental health and behavioral issues in early adulthood. A study in the UK has shed light on why some children may appear more emotionally distressed than their siblings.
The results have been published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
A study tracking a large number of twins born in the mid-1990s found that teenagers who viewed their homes as more chaotic, unstructured, or fast-paced than their siblings experienced increased anxiety and depression and engaged in more substance use and problem behavior. If further research supports these findings, psychologists could create interventions to change adolescents’ perceptions of their home environments.
von Stumm stated that she is excited about the potential for this type of intervention.The reason why people have different perceptions of shared experiences has always intrigued researchers. To investigate this, the researcher analyzed data from 4,732 same-sex twin pairs from the ongoing Twins Early Development Study (TEDS). This study focuses on twins born in England and Wales in the mid-1990s. The researcher specifically chose to exclude data from opposite-sex twin pairs in order to eliminate any potential gender-based differences in perceptions.
Over the course of the study, the twins and their parents were asked to rate the level of routine, noise, and general confusion in their homes at ages 9, 12, 14, and 16. It was found that some households were perceived as more chaotic than others, with constant TV or radio playing as one example.Saying, different people come and go every day, and there are no routines, like regular bedtimes or mealtimes,” von Stumm explained.
When analyzing responses from the twins at age 16, she noticed that siblings could have very different opinions about the atmosphere in their home. One sibling might see the household as much noisier and faster-paced than the other.
“You’d think the siblings grew up in different families,” von Stumm said. “That’s how subjective their perceptions are.”
At age 23, the twins completed a questionnaire designed to measure their educational attainment, emploPayment status, income, substance use, sexual risk-taking, conflicts with the law, mental health, and behavioral tendencies are all factors that were considered in the study. The research found that individuals who reported experiencing greater household chaos at age 16 compared to their twin siblings had higher scores in depression, anxiety, antisocial behavior, and other mental health issues. This pattern was observed across both identical and fraternal twin pairs. Lead researcher von Stumm explained, “Siblings who perceived the household as more chaotic than their brothers or sisters reported poorer mental health outcomes in young adulthood.” This link between household chaos and mental health was apparent from adolescence and beyond, supporting existing theories about the impact of chaotic environments on mental well-being.Mental health issues are likely to occur during the teenage years,” von Stumm said she plans to further investigate the exact age and reasons that siblings begin to differ in their perceptions of household chaos. She added, “It is possible that children who have experienced more adverse events in early life than their siblings, such as suffering an injury or being excluded from school, develop a heightened sensitivity to household chaos that then has long-term effects on their mental health. Because many common adverse early-life events, such as parental conflict or separation, affect all children in a family, it is still unknown if there are specific ones.”
