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Presenters. “A Dad by Any Other Name is Not a Dad: Antecedents and Consequences of What Adolescents Call Their Stepfathers” Karina R. Sokol, Priscila Diaz, William V. Fabricius, and Brandon Moak “Do I Matter to my Dad? The role of adolescent attributions”

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  1. Presenters “A Dad by Any Other Name is Not a Dad: Antecedents and Consequences of What Adolescents Call Their Stepfathers” Karina R. Sokol, Priscila Diaz, William V. Fabricius, and Brandon Moak “Do I Matter to my Dad? The role of adolescent attributions” Melinda E. Baham, Delia S. Saenz, and Sanford L. Braver “Reframing Fathers: Others’ Messages About Fathers’ Behavior and their Effects on Adolescent Outcomes” Sandi Dial & Sanford L. Braver “A Good Dad Does It All” Amy Weimer, Melinda Baham, and William V. Fabricius

  2. Naming, framing, and blaming: How adolescents construct their fathers Chair: Delia Saenz, Ph.D. Presenters: Priscila Diaz Melinda Baham Sandi Dial Amy Weimer Arizona State University

  3. Parents & Youth Study: PAYS Arizona State University: Sanford Braver, Ph.D., Bill Fabricius, Ph.D., Toni Genalo, & Karina Sokol UC-Riverside: Scott Coltrane, Ph.D., Ross Parke, Ph.D., & students San Francisco State University: Jeff Cookston, Ph.D.

  4. Parents & Youth Study: PAYS Funded by NIMH, NICHD Research foci: Role of fathers in adolescent development Mediators that predict the effect of fathers’ behavior on adolescent mental health and academic outcomes Variations in family characteristics (culture, intact vs. step-families)

  5. Parents & Youth Study: PAYS 5-year longitudinal study Target participants are adolescents in transition from middle school to high school 2 sites: Phoenix, AZ & San Bernardino, CA 200 families per site (final n = 393)

  6. PAYS Demographics 49% of the sample Mexican American 45% step-families (child, bio mom, stepdad) 52% girls 12.5 years mean age (range 11-14) $40K modal income (4.2K to 430K)

  7. PAYS Methodological Approach Interviews with target child, biological mom, father/stepfather 3 Waves of data collection Wave 1 (2004) 2-hour in-home interviews Wave 2 (2005) 90-minute phone interviews Wave 3 (2006-) 2-hour in-home interviews

  8. Social constructions of fathers Role of labeling Role of attributions Use of reframing Impact of normative fathering patterns

  9. A Dad by Any Other Name is Not a Dad: Antecedents and Consequences of What Adolescents Call Their Stepfathers Karina R. Sokol, Priscila Diaz, Brandon Moak, & William V. Fabricius, Ph.D. Parents and Youth Study (PAYS) Arizona State University April 29, 2006

  10. Overview • Introduction • Why study stepfathers? • Social Construction of Stepfathers • Research questions • Method • Measures • Hypotheses • Results • Antecedents • Consequences • Discussion

  11. Why Study Stepfathers? • Almost 1/3 of children will have stepfathers sometime in their life (e.g. Hetherington & Stanley-Hagan, 2000) • Recent research reveals that adolescents in stepfather families are at a higher risk for mental health disorders and behavioral problems (e.g. Bray, 1999)

  12. Social Construction of Stepfathers • Cognitive, category-based judgments (Moshman, 1998) • Parental identity and status (e.g.,Marsiglio, 2004) • Parental claim or investment (e.g., Hofferth, 2003) • Parental role (e.g. Fine, 1998)

  13. What is in a name? • “First of all, what do you call him?” • Familial labels • Significance of language

  14. Research Questions • What are the relationship and contextual variables that predict what adolescents call their stepfather? • What are the differential outcomes between adolescents who refer to their stepfather as “Dad” versus those who do not?

  15. Measures- Antecedents • Contact with Bio Dad • Response scale of 1(No contact in the past three years or more) to 7 (Contact almost everyday) • Years lived with Stepfather • Measured in years, range= 1-14 • Overall Relationship with Stepfather (α = .79) • e.g. “How well do you get along with your step-dad?” • Response 1(Not well at all) to 5(Extremely well)

  16. Measures- Consequences (Adolescent) • Adolescent report of Externalizing Behavior (α = .82) • Modification of Behavior Problems Index (8 items) • e.g. “In the past month you argued alot.” • Response scale 1 (not true), 2 (Somewhat true), 3 (Very true)

  17. Measures- Consequences (teacher) • Teacher Report of Behavior Problems • Single items • 1) “How often have you talked with this child about behavior, psychological, or emotional problems? • Response scale 1(Never) to 4 (More than 5 times) • 2) “Have you ever spoken to your Principal or Vice principal about this child’s emotional, psychological, or behavior problems? • 3) “If all the students who are in the same class were asked about this child, would the MAJORITY of them say that this child is always getting into trouble?” • 1 = No, 2 = Yes

  18. Hypotheses- Antecedents _ Contact w/ Bio Dad + Years Lived w/ Step-dad “DAD” + Relationship w/ Step-dad

  19. Hypotheses- Consequences Externalizing _ _ Spoke w/ Child “DAD” _ Spoke w/ principal _ Peers

  20. Method of Analysis • Results were ONLY on stepfamilies • N = 140-175 • Antecedents • Logistic Regression • Three variables • Consequences • One way ANOVA • Adolescent externalizing • Teacher behavior problem items

  21. Predictor B p Odds Ratio Contact w/ Bio Dad - .1 8 .0 5 * 1/ .8 4 =1.19 Years lived with Stepfather .16 .023 * 1.1 8 Overall Relationship . 45 < .001 *** 1. 56 *p < .05 **p < .01 ***p < .001 . Results- Antecendents • Overall model significant • 2 (3) = 27.52, p < .001, Nagelkerke R2 = .25

  22. Classification Analysis Sensitivity Specificity

  23. Results- Consequences • Trend for those who called their stepfather by “dad” had less externalizing behavior (reported by adolescent) • p = .079 • Trend for those who called their stepfather by “dad” were on average talked to less about their behavior problems by teachers • p = .076

  24. Teacher spoke with principal p = .019

  25. Peers believe always in trouble (teacher report) p =.011

  26. Discussion • What adolescent calls stepfather is determined by context and relationship • Provides evidence that the label “DAD” has important implications for adolescent behavior problems • Future research will allow us to explore how they might predict other adolescent outcomes • Further exploration of familial labeling is meaningful

  27. Thank you!

  28. Do I Matter to My Dad: The Role of Adolescent Attributions Melinda E. Baham, Delia S. Saenz, & Sanford L. Braver Arizona State University

  29. Fathers are Important • Fathers have traditionally been understudied • Fathering makes a substantial difference in child outcomes over and above the influence of mothering • An aspect of the father-child relationship that deserves further study is how much the child feels he/she matters to his/her father

  30. What is Mattering? • Mattering involves the idea that a person is important to, and is cared about by, another individual • Mattering to one’s parents relates to levels of self esteem, depression, anxiety, and overall wellness in adolescents • Mattering to parents and friends explained differences in self concept and behavioral misconduct in adolescents

  31. What matters to mattering? • Since mattering to others is highly predictive of important child outcomes, this leads to the question: How does this sense of mattering arise? • The majority of mattering research to date examines the impact of mattering as a predictor for various outcomes • We wondered: When mattering is viewed as an outcome, what psychological phenomena influence mattering?

  32. Reasons Given for Behaviors • One potential explanation of how a child determines that he matters to his father might be the reasons a child gives for his father’s behaviors • For example, imagine a child’s father works long hours • One child might say his father works all the time because his father doesn’t care about him • Another child might say her father works all the time because her father cares for her so much that her father works long hours • These reasons, or attributions, may influence the child’s perceived mattering to his father

  33. Attributions • Attributions are the reasons that people give for various events and behaviors • Attributions answer the “why” questions • Attributions are made about a wide variety of behavioral events, but the attributions themselves vary along only a few causal dimensions • Our focus is Stability - is the attributed cause of the behavior stable or unstable?

  34. Children’s Attributions of Parents • Few studies have examined children’s attributions of parent behaviors • One study found children’s stable (among other) attributions of negative parent behaviors were negatively correlated with positivity in the parent-child relationships • Also, the more a child endorsed stable attributions of the father’s negative behavior, the less positive the observed interaction between father and child • Other studies report children’s stable attributions of negative parental behavior related to ineffective communication between the child and the parent

  35. Types of Attribution-Eliciting Events • When considering the behavioral events that participants are asked to make attributions about, two questions emerge: • Are the events real or hypothetical? • Are the events positive or negative? • Very few studies have included positive events, and even fewer studies included events that were real

  36. The Present Study This study had several aims: • To investigate aspects of the father-child relationship, specifically mattering • To investigate what factors may lead to mattering • To elicit attributions made about real events, and about both positive and negative behaviors • To determine if adolescents’ attributions of fathers’ behaviors significantly predict mattering

  37. + ? - ? Hypotheses Stable Positive Attributions Unstable Positive Attributions Mattering Stable Negative Attributions Unstable Negative Attributions

  38. Measures - Mattering Questionnaire • Adolescents responded to how much they agree each statement describes their relationship with their father on a 5 point scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5) • 7 items were added in order to create one variable that measures overall feelings of mattering, where the higher the value, the more one feels he matters (minimum score of 7, max. score of 35) • This scale has high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = .86)

  39. Mattering Questionnaire Items Sample Items: • My [dad/step-dad] really cares about me. • I believe I really matter to my [dad/step-dad]. • I know my [dad/step-dad] loves me. • I am one of the most important things in the world to my [dad/step-dad].

  40. Measures - Attribution Questionnaire • Adolescents were asked to think of a time their father did or said something nice, and a time he did or said something mean • After each behavior, adolescents were asked to rate how much the behavior was due to several reasons on a 1-5 scale, where 1 was not at all the reason, and 5 was exactly the reason • The reasons were designed to tap the causal dimension of stability

  41. Reasons for positive behavior Stable • He’s a positive or nice kind of person? • He likes to make you happy? • He cares about you? Unstable • You really deserved it? • He happened to be in a good mood? • Someone else told him to or wanted him to?

  42. Reasons for negative behavior Stable • He’s a mean or difficult person? • He’s ALWAYS down on you? • He doesn’t care if something he says bothers or hurts you? Unstable • You really deserved it? • He happened to be in a bad mood? • It was just one of those times that he really got upset?

  43. Data Reduction of Attribution Measure Four new variables were created: • The extent to which a child endorsed stable causes for any type of positive father behavior • The extent to which a child endorsed unstable reasons for any type of positive father behavior • The extent to which a child endorsed stable causes for any type of negative father behavior • The extent to which a child endorsed unstable causes for any type of negative father behavior

  44. Results • Of the 393 adolescents who participated, 27 adolescents could not think of examples of their fathers’ behaviors (either verbal statements or behavioral actions), thus the final sample consisted of 366 adolescents.

  45. Primary Analysis • Investigated if the extent to which adolescents endorsed stable and unstable attributions for positive and negative events could predict perceived mattering to fathers • A hierarchical regression analysis was conducted in which the two positive attributions were entered as the first block, and the two negative attributions were entered in a second block to predict mattering • This allowed for a direct comparison of how attributions about positive behaviors and attributions about negative behaviors potentially differentially impact mattering

  46. Results of Primary Analysis • The four attribution variables significantly predicted perceived mattering to father, F (4, 361) = 81.60, p < .001, and accounted for 47.5% of the variance

  47. ***p < .001

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