The purpose of this study was to examine the comparative influence of socia lizing agents in the social systems, employing multiple regression analysis with birth order and sex as the control variable. A fixed-alternative questionnaire was conducted with 623 boys and 559 girls. Subjects were categorized into first- born, intermediate-born, youngest-born, and only-child. The data indicated the differential function and role of individual-family-member influence. First-borns and only-children were demonstrated to have higher dependency on parents than later-borns. The father was fundamentally the primary socializing agent, and then was dethroned on the most significant socializing role model by entrustment his role to older like-sex siblings. There were two prominent features of in teraction patterns between siblings that younger borns had reinforcing functions for their sport involvement of older borns, while older borns served as rote models for later-borns' socialization into sport in the family. Such tendencies were saliently demonstrated between like-sex siblings rather than opposite-sex siblings. As one of the important predictors, siblings particularly operated as the smoothing function to facilitate children's participation into peer groups. The more children were stimulated by significant interaction patterns with siblings, the more in tensely they were involved in peer group activities. These findings suggest future researchers should focus primarily on the family constellation variables such as birth order, family size, the spacing interval between children, and the sex of older and younger siblings on children's socialization into sport.
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