没有兄弟姐妹？没关系。虽然作为独生子女，与人交往的空间有限，但是美国的一项研究称，独生子女并不存在社交障碍。

    No brothers or sisters? No problem, according to a U.S. study that found growing up without siblings did not diminish teenagers’ social skills.

    A study of more than 13,000 middle school and high school students found that only children were selected as friends by schoolmates as often as youngsters with brothers and sisters.

    “I don’t think anyone has to be concerned that if you don’t have siblings, you won’t learn the social skills you need to get along with other students in high school,” said researcher Donna Bobbitt-Zeher of Ohio State University.

    Ms. Bobbitt-Zeher, who conducted the study with Douglas Downey, said that a trend towards smaller families in industrialized nations had raised concerns in recent years that a lack of siblings might hurt children’s social skills. “The fear is that they may be losing something by not learning social skills through interacting with siblings,” she said.

    An earlier study by Mr. Downey showed that children without siblings showed poorer social skills in kindergarten. The new study was presented at the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association and was designed to see if that advantage to having siblings persisted over time.