LANGUAGE CIRCLE: Journal of Language and Literature 14(1) October 2019 p-ISSN 1858-0165 Available online at http://journal.unnes.ac.id e-ISSN 2460-853X 111 The Influence of Siblingships in a Person’s Self-regulation Process Paulus Tri Nugroho Putro Sanata Dharma University, Indonesia Email: paul.mastermindthoughts@gmail.com Abstract This study presents the ways self regulation exists in the siblingship. How the older sibling influence the decision making towards the younger sibling or vice versa. In this case the decision making is based on where they study. These siblings are in the same university even they are in the same study program. This paper observes how they are affected to each other while they are in the same school. This paper uses interview as the method. In the findings will be revealed why they decide to be in the same university and in the same study program. Key words: siblingship, self-regulation, INTRODUCTION There are many families who have kids more than one. Each child has their own characteristics and intelligences. Sometimes, the parents have big influences towards the children for example taking decision, or sometimes the other siblings have big influences towards each other for example the oldest usually has power over the younger(s). Zimmerman (1986) provides one of the earliest definitions of self-regulation, explaining it as the degree to which individuals are metacognitively, motivationally and behaviorally active in their own learning. Metacognitively, self- regulated learners display the capacity to plan, monitor, and self-evaluate their learning processes. Motivationally, self-regulated learners see themselves as having the competence, self-efficacy and the autonomy to learn. Behaviourally, self-regulated learners display an ability to create learning environments that promote learning (Zimmerman, 1986). Self-regulation in children is still developing maybe that is why parents or siblings especially the oldest play a big role in child’s self-regulation process. Parental demandingness, meanwhile, refers to supervision, disciplinary efforts and willingness to confront the child who disobeys as well as expectations and claims that force the children to become integrated into the family whole (Baumrind, 1991). But sometimes parents force the children to obey the rules. The parents use discipline or even some type of parents will use violence to discipline the children. Parents need to be a little strict towards the children so they learn to obey the rules and behave in the environment. But if the parents use violence the children will not develop their skills including self-regulation. The children will always feel afraid of trying something new or even to be brave children in school. Categorizing parents according to whether they are high or low on parental demandingness and responsiveness creates a typology of four parenting styles: indulgent, authoritarian, authoritative, and neglectful (Maccoby & Martin, 1983). As stated by Buhrmester and Furman (1990); Volling (2003), most people who grow up in a family usually have at least one brother or one sister. The relationships exist in a sibling can be marked as competition and rivalry but at some points can be seen as the closest and intimate relationship in the stages of growing up, such as in childhood, adolescents, and adulthood. In this further LANGUAGE CIRCLE: Journal of Language and Literature, 14(1) October 2019 112 study, the researcher will discuss about self- regulation experienced in siblings especially siblings who are in the same school. The feeling involved in the self-regulation in siblings often influenced by some factors, for example affection from the parents, parents who often compare the children considering their decision of going to the same school, and their intelligence which sometimes they think they are competing each other. In certain schools, and in some certain families, the parents decide to put their children in the same school or even in the same university. Sometimes the older sibling’s attendance in the same school affects the younger’s or vice versa. Sometimes the older feels insecure by the younger’s attendance or sometimes the younger feels uncomfortable being in the same school as the older. Or the case can be the siblings feel motivated being in the same school because they like competing, competing is like the mother tongue in the family. Or in other case, the reason why the younger is in the same school as the older is because the younger wants to be in the same school. Parents’ role is one of the influences in educating the children and where to put them in school. Some parents mostly want to put the children in the same school but for some parents, they give freedom to the children in choosing the school. In this case, parents’ intervention plays a big role in children’s decisions for example in choosing the school, children’s desire to have boyfriend or girlfriend, and freedom to express their mind. Sometimes parents are stiff and traditional so giving freedom to the children is like giving ammunition so they give freedom as a reward to the children. Allan (1977); Cicirelli (1980); Lee, Mancini & Maxwell (1990); Voorpostel et al (2007); Wallace (2012); White (2001) conveyed that it has been suggested that the siblings relationship is perhaps one of the most long- lasting and enduring relationships of an individual’s life. Because sibling relationship is bounded by blood, and people sometimes thought not all the friendship last forever so people will turn to family or in this case siblings if they have unresolved problem and they have nowhere else to go. Allan (1977); Bedford (1995); Connidis and Davies (1990); O’Bryant (1988); Wallace (2012), said that recent years, research has focused on many aspects of sibling relationship being recognized as it can be a resource for support, solidarity, companionship and well being. Allan (1977); Bedford (1998); Connidis (2007); Wallace (2012), however stated that sibling relationships can be a source of rivalry, conflict and ambivalence. Cicirelli (1994), stated that in most industrialized societies siblings are understood to be individuals with two parents in common, with half-siblings sharing one parent, step siblings and/or adoptive siblings being bound by legal bonds rather than genetics. Some cases found that steps siblings with from different parents (step- sibling) often get along each other. Review of Related Literature What is the author trying to emphasize is how big the older child influence the younger child and vice versa. Parents sometimes give the bigger influence towards the children. Categorizing parents according to whether they are high or low on parental demandingness and responsiveness creates a typology of four parenting styles: indulgent, authoritarian, authoritative, and neglectful (Maccoby & Martin, 1983). Each of these parenting styles reflects different, naturally occurring, patterns of parental values, practices and behaviors and a distinct balance of responsiveness and demandingness. Indulgent parents (also referred to as "permissive" or "nondirective") are more responsive than they are demanding. They are untraditional and lenient, do not demand mature behavior, do allow considerable self- regulation and avoid confrontation. Authoritarian parents are highly demanding and directing, but not responsive. They expect their orders to be obeyed without explanation. These parents provide LANGUAGE CIRCLE: Journal of Language and Literature 14(1) October 2019 p-ISSN 1858-0165 Available online at http://journal.unnes.ac.id e-ISSN 2460-853X 113 wellordered and structured environments with clearly stated rules. Authoritative parents are both demanding and responsive. They have clear standards for their children’s conduct. Their disciplinary methods are supportive (Baumrind, 1991). As stated by Uredi and Erden (2008), Neglectful parents are low in both responsiveness and demandingness. In extreme cases, this parenting style might encompass both rejecting–neglecting and neglectful parents, although most parents of this type fall within the normal range. Parents who are neglectful sometimes do not really pay attention to the children. In some cases the parents are busier with work and barely checked on their children. Sometimes the children will look for attention from outside because the parents never give them enough attention. As also stated by Uredi and Erden (2008), Research shows that parents who are responsive and intellectually stimulating, but maintain firm parental control and who place high maturity demands on their children, promote rather than undermine self-efficacy and intrinsically motivated engagement in difficult tasks. Self-regulation in Siblingships Blandon and Volling (2003), in their paper described that several bodies of research now indicate that the quality of the sibling relationship is related to several indicators of children’s social development and psychological well-being. As the researcher stated in the beginning of this study, the relationships exist in the siblings can be a rivalry or intimate. The relationship of the siblings can be a rivalry sometimes because of the factor that the parents often compare the children so in their mind, they tend to compete each other especially in the academic field. The relationship in the siblings can be intimate because the siblings prefer to talk to each other or need each other when one of them in difficulties. When one of them in difficulties, they turn to their sibling because they found peace and comfort and siblings tend to understand each other than people outside. And they are thinking that their siblings will not judge them when it comes to problem they are facing. Motivation Woolfolk (1990) has said that motivation that stems from factors like interest or curiosity is called intrinsic motivation. When we are intrinsically motivated, we do not need a punishment to make us work because we automatically enjoy the task and happily to do it. However Woolfolk (1990), also stated that when we do something in order to earn a reward, avoid punishment, please the teacher, or for some other reason that has very little to do with the task itself, we experience extrinsic motivation. In some cases, siblings tend to compete each other for example in achievements. The extrinsic motivation is influenced by conflict and rivalry. Bedford (1996); Wallace (2012), described that in western society it is believed that the individualistic nature breeds competition between siblings. Cicirelli (1995); Wallace (2012), stated that this kind of situation may lead to rivalry and negative feeling. Whiteman & Buchanan (2002); Wallace (2012), conveyed that younger siblings may find that they are unfairly compared with the behavior of their older sibling by both their parents and their teachers so that they are subject to unrealistic expectations of either good or bad behavior. For example when there are siblings and they went to the same schools, their parents compare them of how they perform in learning performance and how much they score. Not only will the parents, even their teachers compare how they score and their learning performance. How their parents and teachers treated them of how they compare the children influence the extrinsic motivation. Self-efficacy Based on Woolfolk (1990), self-efficacy is belief about personal competence in a particular situation. Self-efficacy resurfaces when somebody is doing something for the first time. They will ask themselves whether LANGUAGE CIRCLE: Journal of Language and Literature, 14(1) October 2019 114 they are able to do it or not. Self-efficacy is influenced by sibling’s learning performance. If the older sibling perform in certain field better, the younger sometimes will doubt themselves and if the younger sibling perform better in certain field, the older sibling sometimes feel jealous of their sibling’s intelligence or in some cases, the older siblings feel proud of their younger siblings. The statement from Woolfolk is strengthened by Zimmerman, Boner, and Kova (1996), that feelings of self-confidence are very motivating to students who have not enjoyed many successes in school. Students are more apt to take responsibility for their learning when they realize that they are capable of achieving on their own. Volition Kuhl (1994); Dornyei (2005) stated a different approach to trying to grasp what lies at the core of strategic behavior: He introduced the concept of ‘volitional competence,’ which is responsible for at least seven volitional mechanisms (Kuhl & Goschke, 1994): (1) Intention control in terms of maintenance of an active intention, (2) attention control in terms of selectively strengthening relevant input information, (3) action control in terms of inhibition of counter-intentional impulses, (4) arousal control in terms of readjusting the level of arousal, (5) motivation and emotion control facilitating the initiative, (6) encoding control concerning volitional selectivity during pre- attentional stages of information processing, and (7) self-reflective thinking and planning, which is a more sophisticated version of the maintenance function, involving a high degree of metacontrol over one’s thought processes. In terms of volition, the researcher will analyze the result of the interview based on the participants’ feeling. Research Question In this section, the researcher would like to formulate the research question for this study. The question is what kind of emotion regulation strategy used by siblings to self- regulate their emotion? METHODOLOGY The interview method will be used to conduct the research. There will be three pairs of siblings that will be interviewed. These three pairs went to the same university and same study program. They went to Sanata Dharma University majoring English Education Study Program. From the school they went to and the study program they majored, the researcher concluded that there is influence whether it is done by the older sibling or the parents. The interview is conducted separately. Dea and Anton are siblings belong to the first pair. The second pair is filled by Sheila and Amanda, and David and Jessica are in the third pair (those are not their real names). The interview is recorded, transcribed, and then analyzed in order to know the feeling and motivation experienced by the participants FINDINGS Based on the interview, participants revealed the feeling that they feel. The pressure that they feel when they are compared by their parents and their teachers, motivation that they feel when the younger or the older got the achievement so that one of them did not want to lose. Even feeling proud of their sibling. Proud of their achievement, proud of their intelligence or proud of their diligence. Motivation The first pair is, Dea and Anton. They are siblings and seen from their record, the older sister, Dea, tried to give the good example to her younger brother, Anton. She also felt jealous of her brother’s intelligence although she is also smart, but she thought her brother was naturally smart. She was smart because of she studied hard. Seen from this kind of relationship, Dea felt like a competition with her brother. As stated by Woolfolk (1990), when we do something in order to earn a reward, avoid punishment, please the teacher, or for some other reason that has very little to do with the task itself, we experience extrinsic motivation. In some LANGUAGE CIRCLE: Journal of Language and Literature 14(1) October 2019 p-ISSN 1858-0165 Available online at http://journal.unnes.ac.id e-ISSN 2460-853X 115 cases, siblings tend to compete to each other for example in achievements. The extrinsic motivation is influenced by conflict and rivalry. Dea felt competitive because back in the day she used to be compared with his younger brother in the education field by her parents and her lecturers that is why beside she wanted to be the good example for her brother she wanted to be better than her brother. As described by Whiteman & Buchanan (2002); Wallace (2012), that younger siblings may find that they are unfairly compared with the behavior of their older sibling by both their parents and their teachers so that they are subject to unrealistic expectations of either good or bad behavior. Besides her competitive feeling, Dea also proud of her brother’s intelligence. She thought that her brother was naturally smarter than her. She told me that Anton were able to read newspaper in the age of 2. I’m the older one, I’m the first child. If I’m not better than him, I mean if I cannot set the example and also well, set the bar for him then what’s the function of my life? Personally I view my abilities, quite ya it’s quite good. I often got good grades but I actually better than him even though he ya he also got good grades often but less often than me but actually I need to study hard, I need to learn for very long time to understand the concept for you know spending more time in study but he just read the materials in 5 minutes and understand everything and get good score and my Goooodddd… He’s genius. He has started to read newspaper when he was 2 years old, so yeah I started to read when I was 5 because I was so lazy, you know tough words like that I prefer counting and numbers. I don’t know why I suddenly I join pbi because … yeah he was better than me was smarter than me, he’s still You know that I always motivate myself that I should be the one who can set example, who can aaa… not always that example but can also make sure that this is my record, this is my record and if you want to break it just do it but if you don’t then this is my life, I want to do better. If you don’t want to accept this, you don’t want to get better than this. But your presence motivates me so that I can give my best on anything. How do I… most of the time I will envy, I will envious towards him because Well he can play music instrument, he can do so many things better than me. But He has so many abilities that I don’t have. I’m quite jealous and also how can I surpass this, how can I beat him and there’s a kind of things because I cannot master all of them all things that he can. I can only excel him on certain aspects. I had to defeat him on the aspects. There are so many people for example my mother, my father. In the beginning it was both of them who always compared us in since in the middle school there are times when I got not really good grades but … compared to my brother and well I still remember that “why can’t you be like your brother in this subject?” like okay then I will have to be better than him so that I won’t be compared to. And some lecturers also compared us when we were both in pbi. Like ms Carla and ms frida how many brothers do you have? I only have one. So basically your parents usually compared you and your brother? Yeah but I think it has stopped when I joined the science major when I was in senior high school because he decided not to follow my step because he chose social major so well they cannot compare us anymore. And after we both grew rebellious since we joined sanata dharma university and we don’t wanna be compared. But every time we get the report from the school well it’s a long looooonggg schooling. Self-efficacy Sheila and Amanda are the second pair of siblings who are my participants. The siblings are in the same university and same study program, but the age gap is not that close. Sheila is in the semester 9th and her younger sister is in the first 3rd semester. Because of the age gap they did not really meet in campus often, they met in campus occasionally. Sheila as the older sister, is actually quite proud of her younger sister’s achievement so far. Sheila admitted she performed poorly and she was not jealous of her sister, Amanda. In fact, she was quite proud of her sister’s performance and achievements. Woolfolk (1990), described that self-efficacy is belief LANGUAGE CIRCLE: Journal of Language and Literature, 14(1) October 2019 116 about personal competence in a particular situation. Self-efficacy resurfaces when somebody is doing something for the first time. They will ask themselves whether they are able to do it or not. Self-efficacy is influenced by sibling’s learning performance. From this recorded interview, the researcher also saw that Amanda looked up to Sheila as a good role model. She always follows me for example she goes to the same high school with me and then she also goes to the same study program as me. She refuse to what is that, to go another study program. for example even English department English literature and English letters and English language education. They’re almost the same but she choose to choose English language education. I influenced my sibling to choose the study program. Hmm.. to be honest, not really since our ability is the gap is very very high and she has very high achievement meanwhile I only have poor achievement. For me to achieve, to get motivation, I think not really. As I said before, my ability is very very poor and then my sibling’s ability is I think that she has almost perfect ability in academic field so yeah she’s better than me. She has a big ability in English in she has very excellent grammar and her achievement is very very perfect and she’s very very good in her study program. I think the gap of the year is also different for example when she still freshman, I was in semester 7 and I took spd and ppl in that moment she is still freshman so our hmm the presence and the frequency of the meeting is very very limited so I think it doesn’t affect my learning performance for me. I feel really doubt and I think that her ability in English language education is good so I feel really proud and she chose the right study program meanwhile I don’t think so it works for me. I think that my sibling’s ability, the frequency of the meeting is very very limited so even though we are siblings, but it doesn’t affect me at all and since we rarely talk about academic so when we meet we talk about let’s say about yeah the personal things but not about academic so it doesn’t affect anything. She’s very good, she’s very, she has a very high achievement and she is very very diligent I think, different from me. Volition The third pair of siblings that are also my participants are David and Jessica. They were in the same university and the same study program; even they were in the same students’ choir. David as the older brother felt great and noble if his younger sister got more achievement. He felt that he was proud of his sister’s achievement. So does Jessica. She felt happy and proud of him as a younger sister even she pumped to be more like her older brother. But at some points, sometimes she was envious of her brother’s achievement but after all everything that her brother gets, it motivates her to be even more than her brother. As stated by Kuhl (1994); Dornyei (2005), stated a different approach to trying to grasp what lies at the core of strategic behavior: He introduced the concept of ‘volitional competence,’ which is responsible for at least seven volitional mechanisms (Kuhl & Goschke, 1994): (1) Intention control in terms of maintenance of an active intention, (2) attention control in terms of selectively strengthening relevant input information, (3) action control in terms of inhibition of counter- intentional impulses, (4) arousal control in terms of readjusting the level of arousal, (5) motivation and emotion control facilitating the initiative, (6) encoding control concerning volitional selectivity during pre-attentional stages of information processing, and (7) self- reflective thinking and planning, which is a more sophisticated version of the maintenance function, involving a high degree of metacontrol over one’s thought processes. David: When my sibling gets more achievements, I feel noble and great. The fact that my sibling LANGUAGE CIRCLE: Journal of Language and Literature 14(1) October 2019 p-ISSN 1858-0165 Available online at http://journal.unnes.ac.id e-ISSN 2460-853X 117 gets more achievements inspires me to be dedicated and conscientious. When I get more achievements, my sibling feels honored and glad. Yes, it does. The fact that I get more achievements advocates her to focus on life and learning goal. Jessica: When my sibling gets more achievement, I feel happy, very proud of him and it motivates me to get more achievement like he does. However, sometimes I feel envy of what he gets, but it motivates me more to do as the best as I can. When I get more achievement, my sibling feels happy and he is very proud of me. He always congratulates me if I get more achievement. Actually, I don’t really know whether it motivates him or not. CONCLUSION Sibling relationship is not a simple matter. In some cases this relationship is rocky and complicated. For example, there is one sibling relationship that the younger brother and the older brother did not talk to each other even they were in the same house. Another case is that the siblings are very close and support each other and there is one that they pretend that outside of house they are fine but actually inside they do not talk to each other. As stated by Bedford (1996); Wallace (2012), in western society it is believed that the individualistic nature breeds competition between siblings. But in Asia especially in Indonesia the sibling relationship is very much close because of the parents influence is still big and parents still interfere with their children’s decision. But it is very much different from the sibling relationship in the western society. 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