Abstract
This study focused on a special group of first-born children, those who had baby brothers or sisters after the implementation of China’s current two-child policy. The aims of the present research were to investigate psychological adaptation of first-born children and examine the relationship between their social development and psychological adaptation. First-born children of 96 child families from 8 kindergartens in Bei**g completed First-Born Behavior Questionnaire and Children’s Social Development Scale. The results indicated that (1) there were many problems of psychological adaptation in first-born children within half a year of the second children’s birth, especially the increasingly emotional distress and problematic behaviors; (2) the total psychological adaptation, emotional distress, separation anxiety and problematic behavior scores of the first-born girls increased significantly after the birth of the second child; (3) compliance with social rules of social development was significantly negatively related to problematic behaviors of psychological adaptation. The implications of the study were discussed.
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Acknowledgements
This study was supported by the Project of Municipal Science and Technology Commission of Bei**g, China (19530050130).
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Qian, G., Zheng, W., Wang, W. et al. Relationship between social development and psychological adaptation of the first-born children in China. Curr Psychol 41, 239–246 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-019-00576-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-019-00576-4