Synonyms
Definition
The killing of one sibling by another.
Introduction
Siblicide is the most extreme form of sibling conflict. Although somewhat rare in humans, siblicide is much more common in other animal species (e.g., various avian species). Sibling conflict (even though it may be intense at times) is considered to be a normal part of development, and the developmental literature indicates that most siblings outgrow these patterns of intense jealousy and conflict when they reach adulthood and move away from their parents’ home (Buhrmester and Furman 1990). Siblicide, however, is most likely to occur in early and middle adulthood (Underwood and Patch 1999) when this is not the case – that is, when adult siblings continue to live together (Ewing 1997).
Relative to other types of familial homicides (e.g., spousal homicides, filicides – parents killing their offspring, and parricides – children killing their parents), siblicide is the rarest form of family...
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References
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Pollet, T. V., & Hoben, A. D. (2011). An evolutionary perspective on siblings: Rivals and resources. In C. A. Salmon & T. K. Shackelford (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of evolutionary family psychology (pp. 128–148). New York: Oxford University Press.
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Hehman, J. (2016). Siblicide. In: Weekes-Shackelford, V., Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3041-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3041-1
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