Escalating sibling violence in adolescence can predict victimization in young adult relationships

Lee et al. aimed to understand how patterns of being victimized by sibling violence during one’s teen years might influence one’s experience with violence in romantic relationships in early adulthood. Their core analysis relied on prospective longitudinal data from the Iowa Youth and Families Project (IYFP), 1989-1992, which they accessed via the ICPSR Member Archive. During the first four annual waves of this ongoing study, researchers tracked 451 adolescents from two-parent families, from age 13 to age 16, and then followed up with a subset of them at age 21. Among the information collected in the IYFP were video-recorded sibling interactions and adolescent self-reports of victimization experiences. These data helped Lee et al. identify three distinct longitudinal trajectories (or patterns) of sibling violence victimization. The “Low-Stable” group, the largest represented in the IYFP (79 percent) experienced consistently low levels of sibling violence, with a slight increase over the four years. The “Increasing” group (16 percent) started with moderate levels of violence that grew much worse from age 13 to 16, a pattern that is not typical developmentally. The “High-Increasing” group (5 percent) experienced the highest initial levels of violence at age 13, which appreciably declined during their later adolescence. Lee et al. found that respondents in the “Increasing” group were significantly more likely to be victims of violence in their romantic relationships by age 21. Birth order, number of siblings, and sibling warmth also were meaningful factors affecting risk trajectories. For instance, having a greater total number of siblings was specifically associated with being at higher risk for intimate partner violence.

October 9, 2025