"I Have to Love Her, Even if Sometimes I May Not Like Her": The Reasons Why Adults Maintain Their Sibling Relationships (Report‪)‬

Within the past decade, family communication researchers have expressed a growing interest in examining the relational maintenance behaviors used among family members (Serewicz, Dickson, Morrison,&Poole, 2007). Although researchers have examined the use of relational maintenance behaviors in the parent-child relationship (Myers&Glover, 2007; Vogl-Bauer, Kalbfleisch,&Beatty, 1999) and the grandparent-grandchild relationship (Mansson, Myers,&Turner, 2010), it is the study of relational maintenance behaviors between adult siblings that has garnered the most attention (Myers, 2011). Relational maintenance behaviors are the actions and activities in which individuals engage to sustain desired relational definitions (Canary&Stafford, 1994) and consist of positivity, openness, assurances, networks, tasks, conflict management, and advice (Stafford&Canary, 1991; Stafford, Dainton,&Haas, 2000). Positivity refers to communicating with a partner in a cheerful and optimistic manner, openness refers to engaging in direct discussion about the relationship, assurances refers to expressing a desire to remain involved in the relationship, networks refers to sharing common affiliations and memberships, tasks refers to sharing responsibility for tasks unique to the relationship, conflict management refers to resolving conflict in an understanding and patient manner, and advice refers to providing social support to a partner (Canary&Stafford, 1992; Stafford et al., 2000). Generally, the use of these behaviors is considered to be proactive, constructive, and rewarding (Canary&Stafford, 1994; Guerrero, Eloy,&Wabnik, 1993).