Sisters can do great things but perhaps they can do a lot more than you’d expect. A study from back in 2010 seems to suggest that they can help protect us from depression.
These findings come from Brigham Young University and basically note that having a sister protects young teens from feeling lonely or unloved. They help their siblings to be less self-conscious and more willing to believe in themselves as odd as that might sound. For this study, the researchers working on it followed almost 400 families from Seattle who happened to have two or more children.
For some reason, it seems having a sister, be it a little sister or a big sister was found to have positive effects. It makes a person feel less down and really gives them that extra boost they might not realize that they need. While you might not stop to think about it, our siblings are people who play huge roles in how we progress as people from a young age.
Lead author on this study Laura Padilla-Walker said as follows in regards to these findings according to Science Daily:
“Even after you account for parents’ influence, siblings do matter in unique ways,”
“They give kids something that parents don’t.”
“For parents of younger kids, the message is to encourage sibling affection.”
“Once they get to adolescence, it’s going to be a big protective factor.”
“An absence of affection seems to be a bigger problem than high levels of conflict.”
While brothers mattered in all of this as well, sisters did seem to do the most good. But of course, regardless of the gender of your sibling having a loving one will promote good deed doing and can foster a more charitable attitude as a whole. As someone who has grown up with a sister, I do see where this study seems to be coming from.
What do you think about all of this and do you think there are benefits to having brothers and sisters that vary? I for one think this makes a ton of sense as sisters always seem to be much more caring and emotionally free when it comes to communication in this sense. Through caring for us and helping us to express ourselves I could see how sisters as a whole could in many cases help protect many of their younger or older siblings from becoming depressed within reason.